Washington, January 16 (RHC)-- In the U.S., a report by Physicians for Human Rights and Harvard Medical School highlights how Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, failed to implement even the most basic hygienic methods to prevent the spread of the coronavirus inside immigration jails.  

The report says prisoners didn’t have access to soap to wash their hands and weren’t able to socially distance inside the squalid jails.  If prisoners raised safety concerns, they would be retaliated against, according to the report. 

Researchers spoke to 50 formerly incarcerated immigrants.  A 33-year-old man, who was held at Otay Mesa Detention Center in California, said: “I think I got COVID because I had body pain and felt short of breath. But I never said anything to anybody because I was so scared that they were going to punish me.”