Man In ICE Custody Dies After Detention At VA's Prison Hot Spot

VIRGINIA — A Canadian man held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Farmville with a major COVID-19 outbreak died Wednesday, less than a month after he tested positive for coronavirus. James Thomas Hill, 72, had been in ICE custody since his April release from Rivers Federal Correctional Institute in Winton, North Carolina.

Hill reported breathing problems to the staff at the Farmville facility on July 10. He was taken to a hospital and tested positive for the coronavirus the next day. The Farmville Detention Center is the site of one of the nation's worst coronavirus outbreaks inside an immigrant detention center.

As of July 29, ICE reported that 290 detainees at the Farmville facility had tested positive for the coronavirus and 262 of the confirmed cases were under isolation or monitoring. There were also 26 confirmed cases among staff members. The facility, privately owned by Immigration Centers of America, had 312 detainees as of July 29.

State prisons across Virginia also have reported high rates of coronavirus. At the state's prisons, almost 3,000 inmates have tested positive and 15 have died, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The Dillwyn Correctional Center in Buckingham County has reported 347 inmates who have tested positive for the coronavirus, the most of any prison in the state.

Hill died Wednesday night at Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia. After reporting shortness of breath to facility staff at ICE facility on July 10, he was admitted to Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville before being transferred to Lynchburg General Hospital July 11, ICE said in a news release Friday.

Hill entered ICE custody April 15 following his release from the Rivers Federal Correctional Institute after serving more than 13 years of a 26-year prison sentence. He was convicted in March 2007 for health care fraud and distributing a controlled substance.

At the time of his death, Hill was in ICE custody pending removal to Canada, according to ICE.

In a July 29 letter to President Donald Trump, U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia wrote that the Farmville ICE facility and surrounding community "now face a dire situation where almost every detainee at the Farmville facility has tested positive for COVID-19."

“It is incumbent upon your administration to work with the CDC to create and deploy teams of epidemiologists to conduct an assessment of the pandemic’s impact at the Farmville ICE facility,” the senators said in their letter. “State and local officials stand ready to support the CDC in efforts to help contain the current outbreak before it spreads to the surrounding Farmville community.”

States have seen a drop in the number of people in their prisons since the start of the coronavirus crisis, largely because prisons stopped accepting new prisoners from county jails to avoid importing the virus, fewer people receiving sentences due to court closures, and parole officers sent fewer people back inside for low-level violations, according to The Marshall Project.

Among all states, Virginia saw the smallest drop in its prison population from March through June. During this four-month period, more than 100,000 people were released from state and federal prisons, a decrease of 8 percent, according to a nationwide analysis by The Marshall Project and The Associated Press. The drops ranged from a nationwide low of 2 percent in Virginia to 22 percent in Connecticut.