Chickenpox Cases Confirmed at Eloy Detention Center
MAY 27, 2016
The facility, located about 60 miles south of Phoenix, is owned by a for-profit company,
Corrections Corporation of America. It houses about 1,500 immigrants who are awaiting the outcome of their deportation proceedings.
Porchas said her group has been told by a
number of immigrants detained at Eloy that up to 800 people there are quarantined, though it's unclear how many of them have chickenpox.
"That's pretty alarming," Porchas said.
In a statement emailed to
New Times, ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe said no more than 20 people are being kept separate from the general detainee population at Eloy owing to the chickenpox outbreak. That includes 16 people who may have been exposed to the disease and are being closely monitored by ICE Health Service Corps medical staff on site.