Explainer: Immigration detention and COVID-19
Everyone deserves to be safe in the face of COVID-19, but immigration detention facilities in Australia are creating unacceptable health risks.
Why do we need to reduce the number of people in immigration detention?
Government and expert advice makes it clear that the risk of rapid outbreaks of COVID-19 in Australia is likely to persist for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, people in detention facilities remain among the most at risk of contracting COVID-19. This is because detention facilities are densely populated and people held there have no choice but to share bedrooms, bathrooms and other facilities, making physical distancing impossible.
Without urgent action to reduce the number of people in immigration detention, infectious disease experts and peak medical bodies have warned that it is only a matter of time until these places become hotspots for COVID-19.
What are the consequences of COVID-19 getting into detention facilities?
The consequences of an outbreak of COVID-19 would be devastating. Because people are held so close together, medical experts advise that the virus would spread rapidly through the population in these centres. Many detainees are already terrified at the prospect of contracting COVID-19 and the fact they are unable to protect themselves from transmission.
Many of the people held in immigration detention have underlying health conditions that put them at high risk of serious illness or death if they are infected. This includes refugees who were brought to Australia specifically for the purpose of receiving medical treatment for serious health conditions.
What are the consequences for the broader community?
A COVID-19 outbreak in immigration detention facilities poses a threat not only to the people held there, but also the broader community. If the virus spreads through the people and staff held in these facilities, it will also spread throughout the community. Like cruise ships, detention centres can act as ‘epidemiological pumps’ which drive the spread of the disease among the wider community, due to the constant rotation of large numbers of staff.
These detention facilities pose a real risk of producing a second wave of infections, undermining the progress made to stop the spread of the virus in Australia. This has occurred in Singapore, where early success in controlling transmission was undermined by a second wave of infections originating from dormitories where workers with inadequate support were living in close quarters to each other.
What are other countries doing?
Numerous other countries have already acted to reduce the numbers of people in detention in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Canada: By May 2020, the Canadian Government had released more than half of the immigration detainees in provincial jails and immigration holding centres.
United Kingdom: In late March 2020 the Home Office released 300 people from immigration detention to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection spreading. Almost three quarters of people in immigration detention have been released since January.
Spain: By early April, 90% of people in immigration detention had been released after the the Spanish Ministry of the Interior implemented a policy of individualised assessments aimed at releasing non-citizens detained for the purposes of removal to their home countries.
Belgium: In late March authorities released an estimated 300 people because detention conditions did not allow them to enforce safe social distancing measures. [1]
United States of America: The Federal Government has been forced by court order to take action. On 21 April 2020, a Federal Judge ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to consider release of anyone in immigration detention with COVID-19 risk factors after finding ICE’s response to have been slow, insufficient and to have put lives in jeopardy. [2] Earlier, ten people in Philadelphia were released after a Federal Judge ruled that ICE was incapable of protecting them from COVID-19 infection in detention. [3]
How can the Government reduce the number of people in immigration detention?
The Australian Government is able to urgently reduce the population of its immigration detention facilities by using existing powers. This can be done by:
Granting Bridging Visas to allow people to live in the community for a specified period of time.
Making residence determinations to allow people to live in a community setting with appropriate support, rather than a detention facility (this is often known as 'community detention', and is already widely adopted throughout Australia).
Expediting the consideration of ongoing visa applications in order to bring forward the release from detention of people who would otherwise be released in the coming months.
In implementing these processes, it is essential that people also receive social support from the Government to ensure they can survive this difficult time.
What about people held in Nauru and Papua New Guinea?
The Australian Government's responsibility for people it has detained extends to the refugees and people seeking asylum who remain in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Worryingly, neither country has the medical facilities to respond to a widespread outbreak. Nauru has no tertiary level hospital and is ranked as one of the least prepared countries in the world. Papua New Guinea reportedly has only 14 ventilators and 500 doctors for a population of more than eight million people.
In the face of the severe threat that COVID-19 poses in these countries, the Australian Government's duty of care requires the pre-emptive transfer of people to Australia.
[1] ‘300 mensen zonder papieren vrijgelaten coronavirus zet dvz onder druk’, DeMorgen, 19 March 2020.
[2] ‘ICE delayed its pandemic response, putting detainees at ‘substantial’ risk of harm, judge finds’, The Washington Post, 21 April 2020.
[3] ‘U.S. judge orders release of 10 immigrants in Pennsylvania, calling ICE incapable of protecting them from coronavirus behind bars’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 March 2020.