Due to the highly contagious and rapid spread of COVID-19, Judge Dolly M. Gee of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has ordered that all children currently held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for more than 20 days must be released by July 17, 2020. The order applies to children held in the detention centers run by ICE in two detention facilities in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. Judge Gee has also ordered that the minors be promptly released to available sponsors or family members somewhere in the United States.
Currently, eleven children and adults have tested positive COVID-19 in a family detention center in Karnes City, Texas, and others are awaiting test results after a worker tested positive in Dilley, Texas. To date, more than 2,500 immigrant detainees have tested positive for COVID-19 while in ICE custody. ICE has said it has released more than 900 detainees with increased medical risks and de-densified the detainee populations at the three family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania, but advocates argue that is not enough.
Even though this federal court order has been issued it is still not the end of the trauma for these immigrant children. Children arrive at the border already traumatized from the violence that they have experienced in their home country. Migrant children, however, continue to be traumatized by their separation from their parents at the hands of United States authorities. Following internationally accepted rights of children, immigrant and refugee children should be treated with dignity and respect and should not be exposed to conditions that may harm or traumatize them.