Federal Judge orders COVID-19 tests at California Detention Center

A federal judge on Thursday August 6, 2020 ordered coronavirus testing of everyone held at a California immigration detention center, saying authorities had shown “deliberate indifference to the risk of an outbreak.” U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “lost the right to be trusted” that the agency will take safety measures at the Mesa Verde Detention Center. The judge said evidence shows that officials “have avoided widespread testing of staff and detainees at the facility, not for lack of tests, but for fear that positive test results would require them to implement safety measures that they apparently felt were not worth the trouble.”