ICE Detainees at Yuba Jail Press for COVID-19 Protections

Dozens of people held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Yuba County Jail, north of Sacramento, say they are trying to pressure ICE and jail officials to take steps to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak.

About 20 ICE detainees at the facility in Marysville came off a six-day hunger strike this week that was meant to call attention to conditions the men say make them vulnerable to the coronavirus.

COVID-19 has so far not been diagnosed in ICE detainees at the Yuba jail. But the virus has swept through two privately run immigration detention centers in California. More than 220 people held at the Otay Mesa facility in San Diego and the Mesa Verde facility in Bakersfield were infected, including dozens who were hospitalized and one man who died from the disease.

On Thursday, one person continued his hunger strike, refusing food for a fifth day, according to the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the jail. That man is Juan Jose Erazo Herrera, 20, an asylum seeker from El Salvador, said Kelly Wells, an attorney with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, who represents him.

“Conditions are awful under normal circumstances, and now they're outrageously abysmal and dangerous for people,” Wells said. “Nobody should be in this facility, much less people who are just awaiting immigration proceedings.”

The Yuba jail began detaining immigrants for the federal government in 1994. The contract generated close to $6 million a year in 2017, funds which support the operations of the Sheriff’s Department.

Immigrants detained at the jail, some of whom said they participated in another hunger strike last month, want ICE and jail officials to regularly test staff members, who go in and out of the facility, for COVID-19.

They are also requesting a halt to new admissions from other county jails, people who are sometimes housed with ICE detainees.

“We are all scared. Every day we wake up scared thinking that, if one of us gets it, we are all going to get it,” said Eduardo Melendez, 23, who is being held by ICE at the Yuba County Jail. “We might not be able to see our families again.”

At least three staffers at the facility have tested positive for the coronavirus since July, according to court disclosures by ICE officials, said Wells.

A spokeswoman for the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office said she couldn’t confirm whether any employees had been confirmed with COVID-19 because it was a confidential personnel matter.

“The Sheriff’s Department has taken a very proactive approach to mitigation efforts in our Jail related to the pandemic,” said Leslie Carbah, a public information officer with the Sheriff's Office, in a statement. “To date we have not had any County inmates or ICE detainees test positive.”

For most of the pandemic, the Yuba jail continued to receive inmates from state prisons with COVID-19 outbreaks, including two transfers in July from Solano and Pleasant Valley.

But the jail has not accepted any prison transfers this month, and has only taken inmates from other county jails when legally required, Carbah said.

“It is important to know that all new intakes, whether county inmates or detainees, must go through a 14 day quarantine before being housed with the general population,” she said.

The Yuba jail has medical care on-site around the clock, and implements a “thorough daily sanitation and cleaning protocol based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines,” she added.