My Brothers Caught Covid-19 While Behind Bars, I fear For Others

At 18 years old, I remember saying to myself, “I’m never going to set foot in courts or prisons for the rest of my life.” I was tired of dealing with the police, the lawyers, the system, on behalf of my brothers. As the eldest of five from a Chicano family, my brothers were often the targets of Phoenix Police through racial profiling—much of the family’s ensuing legal burdens fell squarely on my shoulders.

Sadly, nearly two decades later, not much has changed for my family or those like us in Arizona. Police throughout the state still target Black and Brown people, locking them up at disproportionately higher rates than whites. I, too, have spent my adult like parked outside of Arizona’s jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers advocating for detained people and protesting against the inhumane conditions they face in confinement as COVID-19 seeped into facilities through my work as the director of Puente Human Rights Movement, a grassroots organization fighting for justice in the state.

But over the last few weeks, the lines between my work as an advocate and my personal life have vanished. Two of my brothers, Francisco and Emiliano, who are incarcerated at Arizona state prisons recently contracted COVID-19 while inside. Both have pre-existing medical conditions, which increases the severity of the virus. As I write this, Emiliano, held in Prison, is unreachable. He was thrown in solitary confinement soon after he tested positive, as solitary confinement has become the answer for incarcerated people who contract COVID. Francisco, at Florence State Prison, has been moved to a designated COVID unit where he and 58 other men have been left to languish and suffer the course of the virus without any professional medical care, personal protective equipment (PEP), or the ability to socially distance.

My heart breaks and my rage grows when I hear from my brothers inside. I feel helpless. It is the legal responsibility of the state to care for and ensure the safety of all people who are incarcerated, including protecting them from deadly viruses. The state has failed on this account and on so many others. At Puente, I receive daily testimonies from my community members whose loved ones, trapped in Arizona’s cages, are suffering the same abuse and neglect as Francisco and Emiliano. Their human rights are being violated.

For years, Puente and our partners like Advancement Project National Office have advocated for the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry (ADOCRR) to comply with regulations for medical care and proper conditions of confinement, even leading to a federal lawsuit where ADOCRR was fined more than $1 million in a settlement and later held in contempt of the court for its failure to comply with the terms of the settlement. Yet those same people who have been called out by federal court remain in power. Those same corrupt institutions are standing. And while ADOCRR's mismanagement and dysfunction implementing COVID-19 safety procedures are well documented, the same abuses — and worse — are occurring on the daily.

Francisco and Emiliano are not forgotten. The love I have for my brothers and for all people currently inside cages pushes me to move mountains, even when I feel most defeated.
Through it all, I know this: Human beings do not belong in cages. Our society must stop turning away from the rampant disregard for human life that occurs in our criminal punishment system. We must bear witness, and we must learn to extend compassion, and human decency to the neglected, those stripped of their human rights, dignity, and respect. We must acknowledge the humanity behind the walls of jails, prisons, and detention centers. The further we walk away from the people inside, the further we walk away from our very own humanity.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy and safety

Jovana Renteria is an immigrant rights activist and executive director of Puente Human Rights Movement, a Phoenix-based grassroots organization that develops, educates, and empowers migrant communities to protect and defend families and communities.