US Detention and Release Policies Fatally Flawed

In late March, I argued in an earlier version of this paper that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should immediately embark on an aggressive program of release, supervised release and alternative-to-detention (ATD) programs for immigrant detainees in response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.[1]  Since that time, the number of immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention has fallen by nearly 8,400, but not nearly as fast or dramatically as necessary, given the perilous conditions in which nearly 30,000 immigrant detainees remain and how rapidly the virus has swept through immigrant detention facilities throughout the country and beyond.

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