Public health experts plead for release of immigration detainees to avoid COVID-19 outbreaks A group of public health experts has published an article in the American Journal of Public Health arguing that “safely releasing detainees from immigration detention centres into their communities is the most effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in these settings. Failure to do so will result in infection and death from a novel communicable disease and deepen inequities for a population group that already experiences many structural and systemic threats to health and well-being.” Dutch court stops deportation to Iran due to COVID-19 In early December, the Court of the Hague annulled an earlier decision from the Netherland’s State Secretary for Justice and Security to deport an Iranian national with severe heart problems, on the grounds that the State Secretary had failed to take into account Iran’s COVID-19 situation. According to the Court, the man could have lacked access to necessary healthcare services in Iran given the pressure that the pandemic has placed on the country’s healthcare infrastructure. The court requested the State Secretary to conduct further research into the individual’s access to necessary medical treatment in Iran, and to make a new decision within ten weeks. Media reveal extent of death incidents in US immigration custody US-based media outlet BuzzFeed News has obtained “thousands of pages of documents from internal investigations of deaths of immigrants held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.” It reported that 21 immigrants “died in ICE custody from October 2019 to October 2020, the highest number of such deaths under the agency’s watch in 15 years. BuzzFeed determined that “in multiple instances, guards who were supposed to observe detainees placed in solitary confinement for extra monitoring falsified records to hide apparent dereliction of duty.”