(The Center Square) – The privately-run prison at the center of a lawsuit filed by Louisiana officials against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a history of infectious disease-related issues dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Gov. Jeff Landry announced on Wednesday that the state has filed a lawsuit against various federal agencies after an illegal migrant tested positive for drug-resistant tuberculosis.
“We have an open, porous border, an unchecked border,” Landry said in a post on X. “We’re allowing people to come into this country with diseases that this country’s health care system has consistently worked to eradicate.”
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana has already issued a temporary restraining order preventing ICE from releasing potentially infectious detainees without approval from the Louisiana Department of Health.
The infected individual at the center of the lawsuit, a Chinese national, was apprehended in California after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in July 2024. From there, the detainee was flown to Alexandria, alongside 100 other detainees.
The individual was later transferred to the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, which is operated by LaSalle Corrections under contract with ICE.
During the COVID pandemic, the Government Accountability Project sent a letter to Congress expressing concerns from whistleblowers that Richwood reportedly engaged in practices that dangerously increased the risk of spreading COVID-19 among detainees, staff, and the public.
According to the letter, staff at Richwood regularly mixed detainees exposed to COVID-19 with healthy individuals and staff during transport, quarantined tuberculosis patients alongside COVID-19 patients, creating what whistleblowers called a “disease exchange incubator.”
Richwood management also concealed critical information about the outbreak, refusing to acknowledge the deaths of two employees and required staff potentially exposed to COVID-19 to continue working while awaiting test results.
Employees who were ill, elderly or at higher risk were forced to use personal leave or go unpaid if they refused to work due to COVID-19 risks.
The facility also failed to provide adequate safety training and neglected to test detainees after they were released from quarantine. For several weeks after CDC guidelines were issued, Richwood banned the use of protective equipment, even after knowingly accepting COVID-19-positive detainees.
Furthermore, dormitories and common areas were not sanitized as frequently as required, further increasing the potential for viral transmission.
The information presented in the letter comes from two groups of whistleblower clients: Medical experts in detention health from the Department of Homeland Security and staff who either currently or formerly worked at the Richwood Correctional Center during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The DHS medical experts had been warning Congress and DHS about the risks of COVID-19 spread in ICE detention facilities, which they described as “tinder boxes” for the virus.
In their disclosures, they highlighted that infectious diseases like COVID-19 spread rapidly in congregate settings, such as jails and detention centers.The regular transport of detainees further exacerbates this issue.”Jails, prisons, and detention facilities are not islands — in fact, they are more like bus terminals with people coming and going,” said Dr. Scott Allen, a medical doctor employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in the letter.Allen pointed out that new detainees arrive frequently, often in large groups, while immigrants are transferred regularly, with staff acting as escorts. The constant movement of detainees, officers, and staff — combined with the presence of asymptomatic carriers of the virus — allowed COVID-19 to spread easily both inside and outside of these facilities.
