Adams County health officials confirmed they are investigating an active case of tuberculosis at the Aurora immigration detention center, but they say facility officials’ withholding of information has frustrated the inquiry.
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The case was identified last month, according to several advocates and attorneys who work with detainees. In a statement to The Denver Post, Jennifer Lucero-Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the Adams County Health Department, said the agency had confirmed a tuberculosis case on June 22.
Because officials at the detention center would not voluntarily provide more information for the agency’s investigation, the county issued a public health order on June 25 requiring, among other things, an interview with the patient, medical records, identification of any exposed individuals and access to records in the facility.
“As of today, GEO Aurora ICE Processing Center has not provided all of the information or access necessary for (the county health department) and Denver Health Tuberculosis Clinic to complete the necessary public health investigation,” Lucero-Alvarez said in a statement Monday.
In a separate statement Tuesday afternoon, Kelly Weidenbach, the executive director of the Adams County Health Department, said the agency was required by law to investigate active cases of tuberculosis, or TB, which is a potentially fatal illness that spreads through the air and typically affects a patient’s lungs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Guardian reported Tuesday that more detainees had tested positive for tuberculosis, citing information from an unnamed detainee. The county health department is aware of other reports about more cases, but the agency has not confirmed them or been able to determine the full scope of potential exposures “because the epidemiologic investigation remains incomplete,” the department said in a news release. Staff members, visitors, detainees and others may have been exposed.
“ACHD continues to seek the information and access necessary to complete this legally required public health investigation,” Weidenbach said.
It is illegal under Colorado law to “willfully violate, disobey or disregard” a public health order. Colorado lawmakers also passed new legislation this year requiring random health inspections — including “all access necessary” to investigate infectious diseases — at immigration detention centers. The law includes financial penalties of up to $50,000 for any facility that denies inspectors access.
Andrea Loya, the executive director of Casa de Paz, which works with detainees, said her organization first heard about a tuberculosis case on June 24; the information was relayed from someone who had just visited a detainee in the facility. Based on reports from other detainees, she said, Casa de Paz believes there was an outbreak in a housing unit in the facility’s southern annex.
She said one detainee told the group that a person tested positive for TB on July 6 and was removed from their housing unit. That matched another report, made on July 9 to the group, that a person had been removed from the same unit. That person said the entire unit was tested for TB, and they still had evidence of a skin test.
Shira Hereld, an attorney for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network who works with detainees, said they were aware of two people who were placed in “precautionary” quarantine. Hereld said one sick patient was also moved from the facility, though it was unclear if that person had tuberculosis.
The 1,530-bed facility is run by the private prison company Geo Group, which on Monday announced it had signed a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to open another detention center in Hudson in a shuttered former prison.
Geo spokesman Christopher Ferreira referred a request for comment to ICE. In an unsigned statement Monday evening, a representative for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the Aurora facility had no confirmed, active cases of TB.
The representative did not respond when asked if that meant the patient described by Adams County and by advocates had been moved from the facility.
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Gabi Johnston, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health and Environment, referred requests for comment to Adams County.
The investigation is at least the second public health probe into the Aurora facility this year, after Adams County officials sought more information about an alleged respiratory or gastrointestinal outbreak in January. That investigation didn’t identify an outbreak — though it, too, was frustrated by delays and resistance from officials at the facility.
Detainees in the facility have been tested for TB, Hereld said, and were kept “locked down” for several days with no recreation time.
Loya said some staff members at the facility, but not all, were wearing masks recently, and that the group began handing out masks to people going to visit loved ones in the detention center.
What’s more, Loya and other advocates said, air conditioning in parts of the detention center has not been working in recent weeks — a recurring problem that also plagued the facility last summer. She said her group, which is based near the detention center, has seen air conditioning repair vehicles come and go in recent days. Detainees have also been moved around because of the air conditioning issue, which Loya said may have complicated infection control efforts.
Not all detainees have been tested: The Rev. Edward Nalwamba, a Ugandan priest who’s been in the facility for nearly a year, has not been tested for any illnesses, his attorney, Joy Athanasiou, said Tuesday. Nalwamba has been ill with a respiratory illness for weeks, his lawyers have said, and Athanasiou said a new detainee, who also appears to be sick, was placed in Nalwamba’s cell Sunday.
It’s unclear how regularly detainees had been tested for TB prior to the recent investigation. require that new arrivals must be tested for the disease. Loya said detainees were typically tested upon arrival.
Katherine Soo, a Massachusetts nurse practitioner who has reviewed Nalwamba’s medical records for his legal team, said Tuesday that there was no record of Nalwamba being tested for TB when he entered the facility last year. He was asked screening questions about symptoms and received a chest X-ray, she said, which can help diagnose TB. But it is not as reliable as other testing protocols.
Detainees clean most of the facility themselves, said Jenn Piper of the American Friends Service Committee. They have not been given cleaning supplies and often use small bottles of shampoo to disinfect their living areas, she said.
“The federal government is allowing this corporation to neglect public health and the people in their custody for profit,” Piper said. “That is what’s happening. ”
The facility expanded its capacity last year to its maximum 1,530-bed level. In April, ICE reported 1,260 people were in detention there, though advocates and attorneys have repeatedly said it is often at near-capacity levels.
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