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ICE’s Management of COVID-19 in Its Detention Facilities Provides Lessons Learned for Future Pandemic Responses

Inspection / Evaluation · Department of Homeland Security OIG · 2021-09-09 · about Department of Homeland Security

Report

Title
ICE’s Management of COVID-19 in Its Detention Facilities Provides Lessons Learned for Future Pandemic Responses
Submitting OIG
Department of Homeland Security OIG
Component agency
Department of Homeland Security
Type
Inspection / Evaluation
Publication date
2021-09-09

Summary

ICE has taken various actions to prevent the pandemic’s spread among detainees and staff at their detention facilities. At the nine facilities we remotely inspected, these measures included maintaining adequate supplies of PPE such as face masks, enhanced cleaning, and proper screening for new detainees and staff. However, we found other areas in which detention facilities struggled to properly manage the health and safety of detainees. For example, we observed instances where staff and detainees did not consistently wear face masks or socially distance.

Recommendations (6)

#StatusText
1ClosedWe recommend the Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Ensure detention facilities meet ICE’s COVID-19requirements in the PRR, including:x wearing of masks by detention facility staff;x testing of all new arrivals to ICE detention…
2ClosedWe recommend the Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Revise the cohort tracking report to differentiate between cohorts of detainees with confirmed cases of contagious diseases and those withsuspected cases or who have been in contact…
3OpenDevelop specific guidance regarding communication withdetainees regarding their medical conditions and care and ensure facilitiesimplement this guidance.
4ClosedWe recommend the Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Ensure completion of custody redeterminations for high-risk detainees and appropriately track custody redeterminations in ICE’s data systems.
5OpenWe recommend the Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Ensure all detention facilities that conduct whole-facilitytesting have submitted plans to ICE and that these plans have been approved.
6ClosedWe recommend the Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Implement and track corrective action plans related todiscrepancies found during the monthly spot checks.

Source

Authoritative
oversight.gov report page
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