Immigrants and their advocates won a major victory last fall, following the release of Ricardo Vasquez Cruz from a northern California jail last October. Vasquez Cruz had been the remaining immigrant detained at Yuba County Jail. He’d been held for more than three years.

The detention center in Yuba County has also been the lone remaining county jail in California to still hold a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Advocates hoped Vasquez Cruz’s release could lead to that agreement’s termination. But in “a blow” to advocates, Yuba is again jailing immigrants, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“Empty of immigrant detainees for two months, Yuba County Jail is once again incarcerating noncitizens that the federal government wants to deport,” The San Francisco Chronicle said. Per attorneys who toured the jail as part of a decades-old court agreement, an immigrant was detained in late December, followed by a second immigrant a few days later. 

The report said that the jail is “prepared to accept more,” even as the COVID-19 cases in immigration detention are once again skyrocketing due to the omicron variant.

“On Thursday, 1,766 immigrants were being monitored or isolated at ICE detention facilities due to confirmed coronavirus infections, a more than sixfold jump from Jan. 3, when there were 285 active cases, government statistics show,” CBS News reported last week. That number is now at more than 2,000 as of Jan. 17. 

Yuba jail officials would not say how many staffers are vaccinated against the virus, but UC Davis School of Law King Hall Civil Rights Clinic supervising attorney Carter White told The Chronicle he was told just over half, 52%. “The Sheriff’s Office spokesperson did say that 40.7% of the people currently incarcerated in the jail are vaccinated,” the report said. Funny how officials were willing to disclose that number, but not their own.

Two dozen House Democrats representing California had last fall urged the Biden administration to terminate Yuba’s contract (along with two other ICE facilities in the state), citing years-long records of anti-immigrant abuses and negligence. The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice noted at the time that “Yuba County Jail has been operating under a court-ordered consent decree since 1979 due to numerous constitutional violations and lack of adequate care.”

Yuba held no immigrants for months, and the world did not fall apart. Now it’s resuming detention as a virus is again exploding across immigration sites. This isn’t just a major step backward, it’s reckless.

“I think it’s a horrible idea for them to bring back ICE detainees,” White told The Chronicle. California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice communications director Laura Duarte Bateman told The Chronicle advocates have already organized protests over the new immigrant detentions at Yuba. “We’ve known for decades that Yuba County Jail has a horrific record of mental and medical care that has unfortunately resulted in tragic deaths and lots of pain for lots of families,” she told the outlet.