A sixth inmate has died after contracting COVID-19 at the Terminal Island prison in San Pedro, the site of the worst coronavirus outbreak in the federal prison system.
Eduardo Robles-Holguin, 58, was a few months into a 20-month prison term for repeatedly entering the United States illegally, according to court documents.
Prison officials said he was hospitalized on April 25 after going to the Terminal Island infirmary.
“That same day, Mr. Robles-Holguin was placed on a ventilator and tested positive for COVID-19,” authorities said in a news release. He died on Monday, May 4.
In addition to the six inmates who have died since April 15, more than 620 of the facility’s 1,051 prisoners have tested positive for the disease, as have 14 staffers, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
The situation has drawn ire from members of congress and families of prisoners who say officials haven’t done enough to keep inmates safe.
“Their lives matter. They’re inmates and have broken the law but they are still people,” said Sandra Hines, who organized a protest outside the San Pedro prison last week. “They weren’t sentenced to the death penalty.”
Robles-Holguin, who has a 1996 conviction for burglary, was deported to Mexico in 2015 before being arrested again on charges of illegally reentering the U.S. in 2015, 2018 and 2019.
He was sent to Terminal Island in January after admitting he violated terms of his release from prison that required him to follow immigration rules. A judge recommended he serve his 20-month sentence in a prison where he’d be able to get mental health treatment after attorneys reported he was delusional and paranoid in court.
Terminal Island is a specialized prison that houses low-level inmates with long-term medical and mental health needs. That and its open dormitory-style housing mean it may be especially susceptible to COVID-19’s worst outcomes.
Nevertheless, the extent of the outbreak wasn’t apparent until local authorities recently helped the facility start mass testing. Only about 10% of the inmates tested were showing any symptoms of the coronavirus, prison officials said last week.
Prison officials say they’ve set up new housing to help isolate sick inmates and have limited use of common areas like internet terminals and phones, but family members say that’s effectively cut off communication, leaving them in the dark about whether their loved ones are sick.