First ICE detainee dies from COVID-19 after being hospitalized from Otay Mesa Detention Center

Hospitalized and on a ventilator for a little over a week, a detainee from Otay Mesa Detention Center on Wednesday became the first in immigration custody nationwide to die from COVID-19.

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia died around 2:15 a.m., according to his sister, Maribel Escobar. Her brother, known to her by the nickname “Netio,” would have turned 58 later this month, Escobar said.

She remembered her brother as very kind, someone who helped people, in particular doing everything he could to support their sister Rosa, with whom he lived in the Los Angeles area.

“My brother was a one-of-a-kind person,” Maribel Escobar said.

He was a good person and a good brother, Rosa Escobar said. She says she felt like a second mother to him, especially after their mother died a few years ago.

“Why is there so much injustice in this world?” Rosa said in Spanish, crying in an interview in the days before her brother’s death.

Rosa and her brother, the youngest of five siblings, came from El Salvador with their mother in 1980 during the country’s civil war to join Maribel, who was already in the United States. Rosa said she had lived with her brother ever since.

Her brother was the only one in the family who hadn’t been able to get a green card. Both sisters are now U.S. citizens.

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia with his sister Rosa Escobar (left) and their mother shortly after coming to the United States.

(Courtesy Rosa Escobar)

Escobar Mejia had been at Otay Mesa Detention Center since January. That facility has become the biggest hot spot for the coronavirus among immigration detention centers nationwide.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 202 people in custody there had tested positive — 136 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees and 66 U.S. Marshals Service inmates — according to facility records obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Detainees have complained that the facility was not adequately protecting them from the novel coronavirus. Erik Mercado said he met Escobar Mejia in segregated housing — also known as solitary confinement — when Escobar Mejia was brought in for participating in a hunger strike over the facility’s conditions.

“It was all about his sister,” Mercado said in an interview. “He wanted to get home and help her out.”

ICE released a statement confirming Escobar Mejia’s death on Thursday morning. The agency said that the preliminary cause of death was “undetermined.”

“Consistent with the agency’s protocols, the appropriate agencies have been notified about the death, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, and the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility. Additionally, ICE has notified the Salvadoran consulate and Escobar Mejia’s next of kin,” the agency said.

“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases,” the agency added.

Amanda Gilchrist, spokeswoman for CoreCivic, the private company responsible for the facility, said on Thursday that CoreCivic had been in close contact with ICE about Escobar Mejia’s condition and immediately notified the agency when he died.

“We extend our heartfelt sympathy to this individual’s loved ones,” Gilchrist said.

In a lawsuit recently filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, a federal judge ordered ICE to review cases of detainees who are medically vulnerable to the coronavirus and to release as many as possible. Escobar Mejia was on ICE’s list, but he was already in the hospital.

An attorney representing ICE told the judge on Monday that Escobar Mejia was in serious condition and suggested praying for him.

Before being detained, Escobar Mejia, who had diabetes, had undergone several operations that left him without his right foot because of complications with that condition.

When he died, he had been at the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City since April 24, according to ICE, and had been on a ventilator. He received a blood transfusion on Tuesday, his sisters said, but his body had already been too weakened by the virus.

A little over a week before, on April 15, he had a bond hearing in front of Judge Lee O’Connor, Rosa said, but O’Connor didn’t let him out.

ICE said the judge denied bond because he decided that Escobar Mejia was a “flight risk.”

Rosa said it was because the judge was waiting for more information about a domestic violence charge that showed up in his record that had been a case of mistaken identity. In that criminal case from the early 1990s, the judge dismissed the charge when he realized that police had arrested the wrong person, Rosa said. Escobar’s former attorney, Joan Del Valle, confirmed from her records that he had been acquitted.

“All of this anguish because of the judge,” Rosa said, “because on April 15, my brother was still well.”

Maribel tried to mail a letter to O’Connor last week to express her frustration at his decision.

“I want you to know that it was on your hands to save his life,” Maribel wrote.

The letter, which had been addressed to the detention center, came back to her on Wednesday. She says she’s going to try sending it again.

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which employs immigration judges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rosa is also frustrated with the attorney she hired to help her brother once he was at Otay Mesa.

Del Valle is based in Los Angeles. She had represented Escobar Mejia since 2012 but couldn’t commute to south San Diego to keep helping him with his case for free, Del Valle said, so she advised Rosa to find someone local for the case.

That attorney wouldn’t take her calls, Rosa said, when she was trying to help her brother get out of the facility as his sponsor.

When she found out her brother was hospitalized, it was through Del Valle, whom ICE called when its officer couldn’t get in touch with the new attorney.

The San Diego attorney did not respond to attempts by the Union-Tribune to contact him.

Her brother wasn’t perfect, Maribel said. When he was younger, he got in trouble from drinking, she said. Because of that, he hadn’t been able to get his green card.

Del Valle confirmed that Escobar Mejia had a couple of convictions that were about three decades old, including a DUI. He had an arrest for possession of a controlled substance in 2012, which was later expunged, she said.

The attorney said that when she took his case, she made him promise her to stay out of trouble, and he did.

He realized that he had been hanging out with the “wrong crowd,” Del Valle said. She thinks his family motivated him to live a positive life.

“He adored his mom when she was alive and his sister. He lived for them,” Del Valle said. “That was the center of his life.”

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia (second from right) with his mother (right) and two of his siblings at Disneyland.

(Courtesy Rosa Escobar)

Del Valle got him released from an immigration detention facility near Los Angeles when she took his case in 2012. Because of a judge retiring and other administrative lags, his trial was supposed to take place in October 2020, she said.

Then, in January, Escobar Mejia was arrested by Border Patrol agents near Campo, according to ICE, while he was in a car with a friend. Because of his foot operation, he couldn’t drive, so the friend was driving his car.

Both ended up at Otay Mesa, but the driver was later released on bond, the sisters said. Their brother was not.

“If that hadn’t happened, my brother would be here with me,” Rosa said, her voice full of grief.

She doesn’t want any other family to have to go through what her family is feeling now.

On Wednesday evening she received a call to make arrangements for his body. She was told she has no option but to arrange for a direct cremation because of the virus. She said she was told she would have to pay $1,700 for the cremation.