U.S. exports Covid-19 (June 29, 2020)

The U.S. migration policy in times of Covid-19 is essentially exporting the novel coronavirus through ongoing deportations. The U.S. fails to consistently test for Covid-19 infections among those it plans to deport and immigration detention centers are hotspots for contagion, reports The Intercept in an in-depth, damning piece. The situation is particularly dangerous for Central America's Northern Triangle, which received the vast majority of deportation flights during the pandemic. Guatemala was the top recipient with 100 flights, according to flight data analyzed by CEPR. Haitian officials are also particularly concerned.

U.S. immigration authorities initially lacked the ability to conduct widespread testing, and have failed to follow isolation guidelines for detainees, according to the report.

Guatemalan officials have complained since March about receiving deportees who later test positive, leading the country to suspend deportation flights several times. Even after the U.S. agreed to test people before deportation in May, and to implement safety measures such as fewer passengers on flights, Guatemalan officials say dozens of migrants have still tested positive upon arrival. Deportations have strained relations between Guatemala and the U.S. -- “Guatemala is an ally of the U.S. The U.S. is not an ally of Guatemala,” Guatemalan Alejandro Giammattei said in May. (See last Thursday's post.)

Haitian officials have also pleaded with the U.S. to stop deportations during this period.

Earlier in June Human Rights Watch called on the United States government to immediately suspend deportations during the Covid-19 pandemic to avoid contributing to the global spread of the virus.

The Intercept also notes concerns over testing procedures in ICE detention and the stigma that deportees face at home that are heightened by the pandemic context. 

Meanwhile, in the U.S. the cost of a broader deportation policy, that includes immigrants with no criminal record, are both emotional and financial, reported the Guardian, last week. Just under 6.1 million American citizen children live in households with at least one undocumented family member vulnerable to deportation. 

News Briefs

More Migration

• The U.S. government announced an aid package of $252 million to boost job opportunities and increase public safety in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, on Friday. Of the new funding, $58 million would go to El Salvador, $107 million to Guatemala and another $58 million to Honduras. The rest of the money would be allocated to regional programs, reports the Miami Herald. The move comes as the Trump administration touted its success at reducing migration: “We have been able to reduce the flow of illegal immigration to the United States by 84 percent last month,” said Jon Piechowski, deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Brazil

• One of Brazil's leading newspapers, Folha de São Paulo, said systematic attacks from extremists who support President Jair Bolsonaro were putting Brazilian democracy through its greatest “stress test” since the return of civilian rule in 1985. The paper urged its readers to wear yellow in support of democracy, yesterday, and to reject any return to the country's dark dictatorship history, reports the Guardian. The publication announced that until Brazil’s next elections it would change the motto on its masthead from “a newspaper at the service of Brazil” to “a newspaper at the service of democracy.”

• The horrific death of a young black boy in Brazil, who had been entrusted to the white employer of his mother, has contributed to a nationwide reckoning with structural racism, reports the Washington Post.

• A growing movement for sustainable agriculture in Brazil is pushing some organizations to seek farming within the rainforest opportunities, as opposed to the dominant slash-and-burn model. (Guardian)

• Experts fear that the coronavirus epidemic, which is now spreading through Brazil's more sparsely populated interior, could return to major cities in what is being called a "boomerang effect." (Reuters)

Amazon

• Indigenous communities' susceptibility to the pandemic is not just an issue of unexposed immune systems: "centuries of exploitation, persecution and state abandonment have left them with some of the highest poverty rates and lowest access to quality health care in the Americas," writes Sarah Sax in the Washington Post.

Guyana

• A hearing due to be held at Guyana’s highest court, this week, has been called to finally settle the country's March 2 regional and general election, which has been mired in challenges ever since. A recount found the opposition party had won the most votes, but there are signs that President David Granger will not recognise the court’s jurisdiction, placing the international community in a dilemma, according to the Guardian.

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan opposition movements formally united last week in a National Coalition that pledged to "fight for justice, democracy and against the dictatorship." Representatives from the broad spectrum of political parties and civic organizations that joined together suggested that the coalition would be an option in elections scheduled for 2021. (Associated Press)

• An independent Nicaraguan group estimates that 1,749 people have died of Covid-19 in the country, and that there are 6,775 suspected cases. Nicaragua's government formally tallied 74 deaths and 2,170. (EFE)

• Oxygen tanks are hard to obtain in Nicaragua and prices have skyrocketed, reports Confidencial.

• Nicaragua's government temporarily blocked entry to its own nationals returning from Panama, this weekend. (EFE)

Colombia

• Covid-19 cases are increasing in Colombia, as the country feels its way to some economic aperture after 3 months of an ongoing quarantine. (El País)

• Colombia's first confirmed death from COVID-19 occurred in late February, more than a week before the Andean country originally reported its first case of the coronavirus, according to the government's own revised information. (Reuters)

• The World Bank approved a loan of $700 million to Colombia to assist the country in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, last week. (Reuters)

Haiti

• Criminal gangs, already linked to kidnappings for ransoms, rapes and multiple massacres, are becoming guns for hire for Haiti’s political forces, two Port-au-Prince-based human rights organizations conclude in two separate reports issued this week -- Miami Herald.

Mexico

• Mexico City's public security head, Omar Garcia Harfuch, narrowly survived an assassination attempt by 12 armed men who killed three people in the Friday attack in an elite neighborhood, reports the Washington Post. Over a dozen people were detained following the attack, which Garcia Harfuch said was perpetrated by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). The Mexican government's most likely response, according to the Latin America Risk Report, would be to detain and prosecute those who are immediately responsible for the attack while ignoring the broader strategic implications.

• A Mexican court ordered the suspension of work on the “Maya Train,” last week, after an indigenous community filed an injunction. The $6.2 billion rail link is a pet project of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he would comply with the ruling, reports AFP.

• AMLO's plan to visit U.S. President Donald Trump -- and flying to Washington commercial -- entails more risks than benefits, writes Jorge Ramos in a New York Times Español op-ed.

I hope you're all staying safe and as sane as possible, given the circumstances ... Comments and critiques welcome, always.

Latin America Daily Briefing