How ICE's deployment to D.C. protests led to a massive coronavirus outbreak at an immigration jail

The largest coronavirus outbreak at an immigration jail may have been completely avoidable.

More than 300 inmates at Farmville, Virginia's immigration detention center contracted COVID-19 and one died of the virus after detainees from other states were transferred to the jail. And it all seemingly started because Immigration and Customs Enforcement wanted to send its agents to Washington, D.C., The Washington Post reports.

In early June, protests against police brutality and systemic racism were in full force across the U.S. That included in Washington, D.C., where, on June 1, the Trump administration ordered police and secret service agents to clear out protesters so the president could take a photo at a church. The next day, the administration moved to bring even more federal agents, this time from ICE, to D.C. to police protests, the Post reports.

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But because ICE employees can't travel on charter flights without detainees also onboard, the administration had to find a workaround. ICE, claiming it wanted to stem overcrowding at Arizona and Florida immigration jails, loaded detainees onto a plane along with agents it wanted to transfer and flew them to Farmville, a Department of Homeland Security official told the Post. The Virginia facility is the closest large immigration jail to Washington, D.C.

Within days, "dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for the novel coronavirus," the Post writes, fueling an outbreak that encompassed the whole jail. Read more at The Washington Post.