U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees held in facilities in California will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting Monday, according to state public health officials.
This comes months after federal authorities said the state is responsible for allocating vaccines to immigrant detainees within its borders, prompting local advocates to push California officials to clarify their plans.
Beginning March 15, people who live or work in congregate settings with a high risk of coronavirus outbreaks will be prioritized for the vaccine, including those held at jails, prisons and ICE facilities, the California Department of Public Health said Thursday.
“We feel that this is a very long overdue inclusion of immigrants in detention in the states’ plan,” said Jackie Gonzalez, policy director for the advocacy group Immigrant Defense Advocates. “And what we would like to see is clear guidance for how local public health departments should roll out the vaccine.”
ICE detention centers operating in California should work with local health jurisdictions to get allocations of doses and to plan vaccinations, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services agency.
“The exact approach is going to be provider-specific,” Ghaly said, during a call with reporters.
The coronavirus has swept through all seven detention centers in California, infecting more than 600 people held in the facilities since the pandemic began. More than a dozen detainees diagnosed with COVID-19 are currently in isolation or being monitored, according to ICE figures.
An agency spokesman said a limited number of detainees nationwide have begun to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, depending on availability and priorities for vaccinating individuals in the state where they are held.
Vaccines at detention facilities are administered by the ICE Health Services Corps, by contracted medical staff, or “through other processes as defined by the state and/or local vaccination implementation plan,” said ICE spokesman Jonathan Moor, in a statement.
But immigrant advocates, including members of an advisory group tasked with helping California public health officials distribute the vaccine equitably, say local health departments or other trusted community medical providers should be the entities both informing detainees and providing them with shots.
“We can't expect folks that are detained to be receptive to getting the vaccine from the detention facility staff or from people associated with ICE,” said Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, who also sits on CDPH’s Community Vaccine Advisory Committee. “And that’s because of the really poor track record of medical care in these facilities.”
