ICE Facility Employees Spread COVID-19 -and- Tuberculosis at Home and Abroad

Richmond Correctional Center, Alexandria, LA is owned by LaSalle Corrections, headquartered in Ruston, located directly SOUTH

Actions by employees of LaSalle Corrections – a Louisiana-headquartered private prison company with operations in Texas, Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, and extensively in the Pelican State, which runs the Richwood Correctional Center (RCC) in Alexandria in the northern part of Louisiana – have spread COVID-19, and very likely other diseases to other individuals within the company, community, state, nationally, and internationally.

Located at 180 Pine Bayou Circle, Richwood, Louisiana 71202, (ICE facility website) RCC is a medium-security, 1129-bed capacity facility leased to the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The immigration detention center is also COVID-ravaged, and employees’ actions have likely created new diseases, and spread others – including Tuberculosis, and COVID-19 – because employees there regularly:

• Quarantined tuberculosis patients with COVID-19 patients, essentially creating a disease exchange incubator

• Required employees who were sick, elderly, had pre-existing conditions, or unwilling to risk COVID-19 exposure, to use their personal leave or go without pay

• Banned the use of protective equipment at Richwood for several weeks after the release of CDC guidelines, and after knowingly accepting COVID-19 patients

• Required employees potentially infected with COVID-19 to work while waiting for test results

Employees were also told to “freeze out” detainees with temperatures as high as 103ºF by turning down A/C temperatures excessively low, so they could pass temperature checks and get on the plane, because with temps >99ºF they couldn’t be deported under ICE policy.

The Government Accountability Project, a watchdog organization, has communicated with Congress about the matter.

Whistleblowers Say an ICE Detention Center Used Deceptive Tricks to Conceal COVID Outbreak