Nearly 180 ICE detainees quarantined at Camp East Montana for possible measles exposure
El Paso Matters
by Priscilla Totiyapungprasert
Nearly 180 detainees are under quarantine for possible measles exposure at Camp East Montana, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Fort Bliss, city health officials told El Paso Matters on Wednesday.
The facility initiated quarantine after 16 detainees were identified as contacts of two confirmed measles cases at a detention facility in Arizona, city officials said. The detainees arrived at Camp East Montana before the Arizona measles cases were confirmed, Dr. Hector Ocaranza, city and county health authority, said in an email statement to El Paso Matters.
City, state and federal officials didn’t say when the quarantine began.
But it appears the quarantine started at the detention center several days before state and local health officials were notified of possible measles exposures. A Catholic group was turned away Sunday from a planned Mass and told there was a quarantine to protect against measles spread, said a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified.
The chain of communication among federal, state and local authorities raises questions about whether ICE delayed notification on potentially serious public health matters.
As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, there were no detainees at Camp East Montana showing symptoms of measles, and no indication of measles spread in the El Paso community linked to these exposures, Ocaranza said.
Chris Van Deusen, a spokesperson for the state health department, said a group of detainees were also quarantined for measles exposure at the West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca. The detention centers are quarantining because of different possible exposures to measles cases in other states, he said in an email.
Earlier this year, measles infected 16 detainees at Camp East Montana and eight people in the community. All of the community cases worked for the federal government or had ties to immigration detention facilities. The outbreak was linked to a surge of measles cases in the West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca, which receives transfers from Camp East Montana.
READ MORE: How measles reporting gaps by ICE, hospital delayed El Paso’s response to outbreak
The quarantined detainees at Camp East Montana are separated into two groups for monitoring: 130 men with quarantine scheduled to end June 11 and 48 women with quarantine scheduled to end June 20. No one in either group has reported symptoms, Ocaranza said.
A worker at Camp East Montana who answered the phone Tuesday said the facility remains open to visitors, depending on the quarantine status of the detainee they’re visiting.
Timeline raises questions again about timely communication
El Paso Matters initially asked city and federal officials about a possible quarantine at Camp East Montana on Monday. City officials initially said on Tuesday they hadn’t received notification of any communicable diseases at the detention center. On Wednesday, they said that state health officials had notified them Tuesday afternoon.
Chris Van Deusen, a spokesperson for the state health department, told El Paso Matters at 2:45 p.m. Tuesday that he was not aware of the quarantine. Then, in a follow-up Wednesday, Van Deusen said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the state agency Tuesday about groups under quarantine at both Camp East Montana and the West Texas Detention Facility in Sierra Blanca.
ICE did not respond to El Paso Matters’ initial request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security later confirmed the Camp East Montana quarantine Wednesday afternoon. The agency did not respond to questions about when the quarantine began and if any contacts were transferred to the West Texas Detention Facility.
Following the wave of measles cases earlier this year, email records obtained by El Paso Matters revealed how communication gaps challenged epidemiologists’ ability to contact trace and contain the spread.
Ocaranza and DHS didn’t respond to questions from El Paso Matters on whether El Paso public health officials had received adequate and timely notification about the current quarantine at Camp East Montana.
“It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” an unnamed DHS spokesperson said Wednesday in an email statement. “This includes medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”
DHS did not respond to questions about the measles situation at Camp East Montana and the West Texas Detention Facility.
PODCAST: Emails reveal confusion, failures in El Paso measles outbreak response
The state health department is coordinating with the medical team at the West Texas Detention Facility and the U.S. Marshals Service regarding several detainees who were exposed to confirmed measles cases, Ocaranza said.
The city health department relaunched its measles dashboard earlier this year with a list of community exposure sites, which included the El Paso County Jail, where federal detainees are also held.
Patrick Gailey, chief deputy of the El Paso County Detention Bureau, said if inmates are brought from outside agencies such as the Marshals Service, they have to report whether the individual was exposed so they can immediately be isolated and notify jail staff to make sure that staff is also protected.
“Right now we don’t have anyone at the jails who has measles,” Gailey told El Paso Matters. “Right now we have zero reports of any measles outbreak or chicken pox.”
Gailey said all inmates are given a medical screening upon entering the facility and if there is a measles exposure inmates would be put in a 21-day quarantine.
Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease that often causes a fever and rash. People are considered contagious four days prior to rash onset.
Elida S. Perez and Robert Moore contributed to this story.