Measles Has Now Begun To Infect Immigrant Detention Camps

from the cascading-failure dept

It’s darkly funny, in a way, to recall a racist trope that gets trotted out about immigration all the time: immigrants bring disease into the country. That in itself isn’t funny, obviously. The funny part is that it seems like we’re proving the opposite to be true under the Trump administration. As the measles outbreak in America continues to rage, immigration detention camps are starting to feel the effects.

Earlier this week reports indicated the Dilley detention center in Texas was going on a sort of soft lockdown due to confirmed cases of measles among those detained.

“ICE Health Services Corps immediately took steps to quarantine and control further spread and infection, ceasing all movement within the facility and quarantining all individuals suspected of making contact with the infected,” McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin said medical officials were monitoring detainees and taking “appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection.”

“All detainees are being provided with proper medical care,” she added.

We are definitely in “prove it” territory when it comes to this administration and immigration questions. That’s all the more so if the government, as they’ve done via other excuses in the past, limits or restrains entry to these facilities from other lawmakers who want to check DHS’ homework and uses the measles outbreak as the reason for it.

Neha Desai, a lawyer for the California-based National Center of Youth Law, which represents children in U.S. immigration custody, said she hopes the measles infections at Dilley are not used to “unnecessarily” prevent lawmakers and attorneys from inspecting the detention center in the near future, citing broader concerns about the facility.

“In the meantime, we are deeply concerned for the physical and the mental health of every family detained at Dilley,” Desai said. “It is important to remember that no family needs to be detained — this is a choice that the administration is making.”

It’s also worth remembering that the spread of disease is a recurring feature in the concentration camp industry. Deaths from disease as well. And, unlike the trope mentioned above, these are infections immigrants are getting from America, not bringing to her soil.

And it’s not just one detention camp, either. The Florence Detention Center in Arizona is also dealing with measles infections.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports one ICE detainee in the Florence Detention Center in Pinal County tested positive for measles on Jan. 21.

Two more measles cases have recently been confirmed among people who are also in federal custody in the county, according to a spokesperson for the Pinal County Public Health Services District. But the spokesperson did not provide details about which facility the other two infected individuals are in, or whether any of the three cases in the county are linked.

As Desai said in the quote above, this is a choice. Or, rather, a series of choices. It’s a choice made by Trump and his minions to carry out this inhumane, disorganized, haphazard campaign of brutality on illegal immigrants. This could have gone many ways, but Trump chose cruelty on purpose. It’s a choice to put RFK Jr. in charge of America’s health and then watch idly, leaning back with folded arms, as the country experiences the worst measles outbreak in decades over the past 13 months. It’s a choice to not pivot on any of the above.

And it’s a choice to leave South Carolina swinging in the wind as the measles outbreak there will no doubt continue to spread to the rest of the country.

State health officials are reporting 29 new cases of measles in the state since Friday, bringing the total number of cases in South Carolina related to the Upstate outbreak to 876. The South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) said there are currently 354 people in quarantine and 22 in isolation. The latest end of quarantine for these cases is Feb. 24.

Those numbers will continue to rise, but they are already breathtaking. 2025 saw a measles infection count nationwide of 2,267. South Carolina has generated nearly 40% of that total in one month in one state. 18 states have already had measles infections within their borders this year. The 2026 totals are going to make 2025 look like peanuts.

And it could potentially be hardest on the human beings who are shoved like sardines into these immigrant detention camps. Diseases like the measles will spread incredibly fast there. And, despite DHS’ claims to the contrary, I just can’t find it in me to believe that this administration is going to put a priority on detainee’s health.

Filed Under: arizona, concentration camp, dilley detention center, donald trump, florence detention center, ice, immigration, kristi noem, measles, rfk jr., south carolina