Immigrant advocates say a growing outbreak of COVID-19 at the Yuba County Jail is putting the people held there at risk, including some who are medically vulnerable.
On Dec. 16, Yuba County Jail officials closed the facility to visits after they identified seven confirmed cases. Since then, according to attorneys, the number of people infected has increased to 78, which is more than 30% of the total jail population.
While the majority of people housed at the Yuba County Jail are in county custody, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees are held there as well. In April, the San Francisco Public Defender's office filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of ICE detainees at the Yuba jail and the Mesa Verde detention facility in Bakersfield, citing dangerous conditions.
Katie Kavanagh, a senior attorney for the San Francisco-based California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, says she spoke with two detainees who have tested positive for COVID-19. Kavanagh says they described "disgusting conditions," including "trash, gum, fingernails and excrement," and reported using a bathroom shared by those with and without COVID-19 that is "not cleaned between uses."
Over the summer, ICE detainees inside the facility went on a hunger strike for five days to draw attention to the situation.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who's presiding over the case, ruled that lawyers could apply for the release of ICE detainees on a case-by-case basis. He also ordered in June that ICE and the jail take precautions such as keeping detainees out of the older, more crowded side of the jail and isolating COVID-19 symptomatic people.
But immigrant advocates say those protections have begun to erode.