Detained migrants issue plea for help, alleging forced work and lack of sanitary conditions

'What we have received is the deprivation of our freedom and the violation of our rights'

A group of migrants seeking asylum in the US have issued a plea for help, writing in a letter that they have been forced to work in unsanitary conditions while detained amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In the letter published on Wednesday, the migrants claimed they were made to work without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) in areas considered hot spots for spreading the novel coronavirus, including the kitchen and medical facilities.

The migrants said there were no social distancing measures in place at the La Palma Correction Centre near Phoenix, Arizona, a detention facility overseen by CoreCivic, the largest private prison corporation in the country.

Other allegations included forced work cleaning units where sick patients were treated by nurses, a lack of hygienic products like toilet paper and poor quality face masks that were only issued to migrants after they begged for PPE. If migrants refused to comply with work orders from guards, the letter said they were threatened with indefinite lock-ins or being sent to solitary confinement, otherwise called “the hole”.

“We are fleeing the dictatorships in our countries, and came to this country seeking political asylum,” the letter began. “What we have received is the deprivation of our freedom and the violation of our rights, which we want to repeat and make public through this document.”

The migrants went on to say their families were worried about the spread of Covid-19 within the detention centre. At least 78 detains at La Palma have tested positive for the virus, according to US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

“We have been locked up at times for periods of three days without being able to shower or communicate with our families,” the letter read. “The guards continue to come in and out of the tank and they are not wearing basic protective equipment necessary for prevention.”

Migrants also alleged they were receiving poor nutrition inside of the detention centre, writing: “For dinner we were given two [slices] of rotten ham and two portions of bread, we protested and all 98 of the detainees returned our meals and that day there was no dinner even though we showed them the rotted ham.”

The letter was sent to the Florence Immigrants & Refugees Rights Project, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of the migrants, along with the American Civil Liberties Union.

The federal lawsuit, filed earlier this week, argues that the migrants were being unlawfully detained in the detention facility, which the groups described as “tinderboxes on the verge of explosion”. Lawyers for the migrants demanded their release from detainment, citing a delay in immigration cases due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Laura Belous, an attorney for the legal advocacy group, said in a statement to NBC News: “Our clients have told us over and over again it's impossible to practice social distancing in detention.”

She added: “It's impossible to maintain that six feet of distance when the telephone you're sitting on to talk to your lawyer is one to three feet from the other guy on the phone. When you're in communal showers. When 40 to 50 guys are touching the same door. That disease is going to spread like wildfire. And the fact is, it has."

More than 1,300 migrants previously detained in the US have been released amid the pandemic due to court orders, as well as reviews conducted by ICE.

The agency declined to comment on the letter, but told NBC News the “health, welfare and safety” of detained migrants are “one of ICE’s highest priorities.”