Yesterday, Tuesday May 12th, The Guardian ran this story, “He lived in the US for 40 years. Then he became the first to die from COVID-19 in immigration jail.”
Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia had lived in the United States for four decades. Last week, he became the first person to die from Covid-19 in immigration custody.
Escobar Mejia, 57, came to the US as a teenager, having fled El Salvador after his brother’s murder during the war. He died on Wednesday in San Diego, after complaining for weeks that he was sick and that his history of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems and an amputated foot put him at high risk of succumbing to Covid-19 inside the Otay Mesa detention center.
Escobar Mejia’s death comes as Covid-19 has infected hundreds of detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) jails. A long history of substandard conditions, overcrowding and unsanitary practices in some facilities, as well as the US government’s refusal to release many detainees at particular risk of developing Covid-19 complications, has led to a rapidly escalating crisis, advocates say.
National Director of the Knights Party based in Harrison Arkansas, Thomas Robb said, “This is a common headline since the beginning of the Chinese Virus. It’s being used by the liberal left as an excuse to release these illegal immigrants back into society, only to commit more crimes. If this illegal alien has been in the United States for 40 years, why was he in detention? These are the people who don’t belong in America. American citizens are dying in our senior nursing homes as well, so of course, illegal immigrants will die as well.”