Seems Bad

No impenetrable barrier between inmates and guards, either.

Consumption is flourishing in immigration detention centers across the country, yet another sign that America is grinding its way through a second Gilded Age. It’s better known now by its other name, tuberculosis, and it’s the most deadly infectious disease in the world, the World Health Organization says, responsible for killing 1.5 million people each year, even though it’s both preventable and curable.

Detainees have tested positive for tuberculosis at the Anchorage Correctional Complex in Alaska and Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, according to news reports. One immigrant died days after a diagnosis of the disease in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, an ICE death notice shows. Detainees may have been exposed at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, according to a lawsuit. And in Washington state, several possible cases of tuberculosis in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma were reported this month to state authorities, and one man was hospitalized for it, his attorney said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not respond to a request for comment. Officials have previously downplayed the presence of tuberculosis, the reports show, including responding to questions about the cases in Tacoma by saying, “This false claim needs to stop.”