U.S. Inhuman Treatment of Migrants Endangers Peoples of the Americas
Deported from U.S. during the pandemic, migrants
arrive home in Mexico.
A particular feature of the pandemic in the U.S.
is the government's inhuman treatment of those
without status:
immigrants, migrant workers and asylum seekers.
This includes not only
lack of treatment or detention in conditions where
social-distancing
cannot be maintained, but also ongoing
deportations of people to
Mexico, Central America and Haiti. All of this is
in defiance
of international guidelines and standards for
the treatment of
migrants and refugees.
While countries like Cuba and others are
selflessly providing assistance to the peoples of
the world; and while
Venezuela, in spite of the many hardships it must
contend with for
being an object of U.S. economic warfare, is
welcoming home and
providing free health and social services to large
numbers of returning
Venezuelan migrants (over 58,000 as of June 13,
most of them informal
workers) who found themselves stranded and without
any means of support
in neighbouring countries when the pandemic
struck, the U.S.
imperialists are showing their callous disregard
for human life by
endangering the peoples of Latin America and the
Caribbean at a time
when that region is being hit very hard by the
pandemic.
One of the news agencies reported on June 7: "In
the name of containing the spread of COVID-19 at
home, the United
States has been pushing ahead with its immigration
enforcement agenda,
deporting thousands of Central Americans,
including those who have been
infected with the deadly virus, to their home
countries amid the
ravaging pandemic.
"With little or even no sanitary measures in
place
in crowded holding centres or the deportation
process, Washington's
business-as-usual approach has disregarded a
global health crisis and
jeopardized the fragile health systems in less
developed countries in
Central America.
"So far, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica and other
Latin
American countries, such as Colombia and Mexico,
have all reported
infected cases among deportees. The United States,
with the world's
highest number of infections and deaths, is
accused of prompting the
virus' diffusion in its neighbouring region.
"Marvin Canahui, a 38-year-old Guatemalan
migrant,
said his own experience was typical of thousands
of deportees who were
held or deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE)
during the pandemic.
"'They never even gave us hand soap or sanitizer
for disinfecting,' said Canahui, who [was recently
deported] after
working in the United States for 17 years. [...]
"Except in the dining room and telephone area,
there was no cleaning or preventive measures, such
as social
distancing, in the facility where he shared a
dormitory, showers and
bathrooms with about 200 other migrants from
Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras and Nicaragua, he recalled.
"'It was packed, completely full. There was no
room for more people,' said Canahui. "They (U.S.
authorities) kept
bringing in prisoners. We were totally cramped in
there.'
"Before he was deported in mid-April, personnel
at
the centre checked his throat with a plastic
tongue depressor, without
explaining what it was for or informing him of the
result.
"After he arrived in Guatemala by air on April
14,
immigration authorities there put him and other
deportees in quarantine
for 14 days at a shelter near the airport, since
previous returnees had
tested positive for the virus. [...]
"A Salvadoran migrant who only gave his name as
Carlos was kept at a detention facility in Texas
from late January to
early April, losing 20 kilos of weight in the
process due to existing
ailments and the poor conditions. [...]
"'There was no kind of protection or (special)
handling' and more than 80 fellow detainees 'were
not tested,' said
Carlos, 31, who fled San Salvador in January after
gang members
threatened to kill him for failing to pay
protection money for his
small business.
"He said he had hoped to apply for asylum in the
United States, but was caught almost immediately
by border patrol
agents and sent to the 'icebox,' slang describing
the frigid holding
cells to keep detainees. [...]
"David Cruz, a 48-year-old Mexican migrant, said
he was given a face mask and his temperature was
checked when he was
put in a holding cell in McAllen, Texas, but he
was held with 27 others
in 'close, very close' quarters.
"He was deported in May by taking one of eight
flights designed to speed up the deportation
process to Mexico, which
is usually done by ground transport.
"The objective of these flights is to reduce the
spread of COVID-19 'to the United States,' U.S.
Customs and Border
Patrol said in a statement.
"However, Latin American experts said the U.S.
move amid the COVID-19 outbreak might risk
spreading the virus to the
south of the United States, especially to the poor
rural communities
many migrants come from.
"On May 4, international medical charity Doctors
Without Borders urged the United States to suspend
deportations,
warning that the move could deteriorate situations
in countries poorly
equipped to deal with such crises.
"Loic Jaeger, the charity's director for Mexico
and Central America, said earlier that deporting
migrants without first
checking for possible infection was a 'criminal
policy.' [...]
"According to ICE, some 943 migrants at more than
45 U.S. detention centres tested positive for
COVID-19 after 1,788
tests had been carried out. The total number of
migrants held at these
centres has reached 29,675 by the end of April.
"The United States seems to be exploiting the
pandemic to crack down on immigration, said Ruben
Figueroa, a member of
the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement that defends the
human rights of
Central American migrants.
"'They are taking advantage of this time to
impose
much stronger restrictions, much stricter security
measures. They are
violating [the rights of] these people, their
communities, and the
countries they are from. It's clear, it's
obvious,' said Figueroa.
"In Colombia, infectious disease experts have
sounded the alarm on the U.S. move after more than
20 of 64 Colombians
deported on March 30 tested positive for COVID-19.
"Aristobulo Varon, one of the repatriated, told
local press that none of the deportees had been
tested, and the
validation relied only on the fact that they had
presented no obvious
symptoms of the novel coronavirus.
"Soraya Marquez, an infectious disease expert and
coordinator of health care recovery at the Juan N.
Corpas Clinic in
Bogota, said the United States has been careless
by flouting standard
health protocols amid a raging pandemic that has
infected over 6.8
million people worldwide and killed more than
390,000.
"'I think it has totally failed, precisely for
not
following protocols, since the presence of
COVID-19 has been proven in
patients that are completely asymptomatic, which
is why you have to
undertake stringent measures, studies and tests to
rule out and/or
confirm the diagnosis so as not to increase the
number of infections,'
said Marquez.
"The U.S. performance in the pandemic has 'put
many people at risk,' she said. 'The message is
clear: life takes
precedence over any other interest.'"
On June 10, Guatemala's Foreign Ministry said
that
the United States resumed deportation flights to
that country this
week, after a break of one month due to the
coronavirus pandemic, teleSUR reported.
The report continues:
"Foreign ministry spokeswoman Patricia Letona
said
the flights would contain groups of around 50
people, including
children, and that two more were scheduled for
next week.
"Though flights with unaccompanied minors from
the
U.S. have continued, general deportations by air
to Guatemala were
suspended in mid-May.
"The flights have caused tensions between the
U.S.
and Guatemala because dozens of people sent back
to the Latin American
nation tested positive for coronavirus. At least
186 deportees have
tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the
country despite the
U.S. assuring they were in good health.
"Guatemala's government said deportees would be
screened for the virus and that only its citizens
held in U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
detention centres were coming
back.
"'The decision [to restart flights] was made on
the basis of technical sanitary information,'
Letona said.
"The Foreign Ministry says about 5,500
Guatemalans
are in the custody of ICE. More than 2,500 of
those have a final
deportation order and the remainder still have a
pending process.
"The administration of U.S. President Donald
Trump
has pressured Guatemala to keep receiving deported
migrants despite
widespread concerns returnees are bringing
coronavirus with them and
could infect remote communities.
"News of the resumption was met with resistance
from migrant advocacy groups inside Guatemala.
"Director of Casa del Migrante migrant shelter
and
priest, Mauro Verzeletti, said Washington's
decision was a 'major
mistake' and would not help conditions in
Guatemala.
"'This is only going to cause more racism against
the returnees in their own country,' he told
Reuters. 'We're still
closed and we'll re-open once the curve of the
pandemic has come down.'"
TeleSUR informs that since the epidemic began in
Guatemala in mid-March, the country has received
2,160 deportees from
the U.S. As of June 12, Guatemala has reported a
total of 8,561 cases
(6,660 active; 1,567 recovered; 334 deaths) for
rates of 478 cases per
million and 19 deaths per million.
Regarding the situation in Haiti, Steve Forester,
Immigration Policy Coordinator for the Institute
for Justice &
Democracy in Haiti reports, "At least eight of 30
Haitians deported
from the U.S. to Haiti on May 26, 2020 had
been quarantined
at Louisiana's Pine Prairie facility of
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) because they had tested positive
for COVID-19 in late
April and/or early May. It appears that none of
them had ever tested
negative twice, if even once, using a reliable
COVID-19 test. [...]
"The 30 persons returned to Port-au-Prince on an
iAero Airways 'Swiftflight' 737 shortly after
12:30 pm on May 26
included one man who in recent days and on the
evening of May 25 had
complained to me of difficulty breathing, fever,
and pain in his chest,
legs, and thighs. He was one of the eight who had
tested positive for
coronavirus and therefore been quarantined at
ICE's Pine Prairie
facility.
"The eight deportees who tested positive for
COVID
were transferred on the morning of May 25 from
Pine Prairie to ICE's
Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, where
they were checked for
the coronavirus using a 'rapid test.' [...]
"We do not know how many of the other 22 persons
on the May 26 flight may also have tested positive
for COVID-19 or were
not cleared per the appropriate public health
protocol.
"I spoke recently to a Haitian deported on Apr.
7.
He described very crowded conditions at ICE
detention facilities and in
a waiting area, with people seated right next to
each other, some
coughing and sneezing.
"He said that everyone on the deportation flight
was seated right next to each other in twos, with
no space in between
them and with the aisle seats free. A May 25 Vice
News
report documents ICE's disregard for social
distancing in transporting
detainees.
"Shortly before ICE's May 11 deportation flight
to
Haiti, the Haitian government's scientific
advisors counselled against
receiving deportations from abroad because of the
risk of spreading the
coronavirus.
"The deportation of eight persons who tested
positive for COVID, who were not cleared through
appropriate public
health protocol, is another example of why no one
should be deported
during the pandemic. In engaging in such
practices, the Trump
administration disrespects Haiti and the lives of
its people."
Jake Johnston, Senior Research Associate at the
Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in
Washington, DC, also
elaborated on this issue at a forum organized by
Congresswoman
Frederica S. Wilson on May 29. He explained that
"Haiti is not the only
country that has received deportation flights from
the United States
during the global pandemic. Since March 13, ICE
has made at least 135
deportation flights to 13 countries in Latin
America and the Caribbean.
Deportees have later tested positive in Guatemala,
Jamaica, Mexico,
Colombia, and Haiti. In Guatemala, the government
has identified more
than 100 COVID-19 cases among those deported.
"The Trump administration's continued
deportations
represent a significant public health risk for the
region and place a
burden on already overtaxed public health systems.
The Haitian
government, for example, is forced to use scarce
resources to
quarantine recent deportees while being unable to
properly quarantine
its frontline medical workers. While this is a
regional issue, there is
no doubt that Haiti is one of the least prepared
countries to deal with
a COVID-19 outbreak. In recent weeks, confirmed
cases have skyrocketed
in Haiti, and, with one of the lowest testing
rates in the world, this
most likely represents just the tip of the
iceberg."
Johnson goes on to state that "some 60 per cent
of
Haiti's health services are provided by NGOs and
private actors."
As of June 13, Haiti has 3,941 total reported
cases
of COVID-19 (3,853 active; 24 recovered; 64
deaths): 346 cases per
million; and 6 deaths per million. The number of
total daily new cases
peaked on June 6 with 332 and had declined to 134
by June 11, while the
number of active cases has yet to peak. Haiti has
been in an ongoing
political crisis since the 2004 coup against the
democratically elected
government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, carried out
by Canada, France and
the U.S. The health and political situation was
worsened by the 2010
earthquake, then the cholera epidemic brought by
UN peacekeepers.
Recent elections have been based on foreign
interference and have
produced corrupt governments without any
legitimacy.
Canada is fully implicated in this situation, not
only in Haiti as it exploits Haitian asylum
seekers working
courageously as frontline health care workers, but
by denying a safe
haven to all those arriving in Canada from the
U.S. due to the Safe
Third Country Agreement.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 21 - June 13, 2020
Article Link:
U.S. Inhuman Treatment of Migrants Endangers Peoples of the Americas
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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