Editor’s note: The Washington Blade published a Spanish version of this story on Sept. 8. Merlis Rodríguez Hernández trembled with fever while alone in a cell.
There was no one there to help her, put a damp cloth on her forehead or hold her hand to convey confidence. There was not an inch of her body that was not in pain, and an incessant cough barely allowed her to breathe.
She used what little energy she had left to cry. Rodríguez at this point had been in isolation for several days at the Eloy Detention Center, a U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Eloy, Ariz., after she tested positive for the coronavirus on June 11.