Thread: 50 Haitians deported

ICE removes detainees with coronavirus from deportation flight to Haiti

BY MONIQUE O. MADAN AND JACQUELINE CHARLES
MAY 11, 2020 05:31 PM, UPDATED 45 MINUTES AGO

Video

U.S. immigration authorities did not deport five detainees back to Haiti on Monday who had tested positive for the often deadly COVID-19 respiratory disease.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight, which landed in Port-au-Prince from San Antonio, Texas, shortly before 1 p.m. Monday, arrived with only 50 passengers — 14 with criminal backgrounds and 36 others, including children — aboard rather than the 100 deportees Haitian officials were anticipating.

Jean Négot Bonheur Delva,the head of Haiti’s Office of National Migration, said he was not told why the other deportees were not on board. His office, he said, has transferred the group to three hotels, where they will be quarantined over the next 14 days at the Haitian government’s expense.

“All 14 [criminal] deportees are in one hotel and the other 36 are divided in two; 18 people each,” Delva said.

In total, Haiti only has 111 available beds at four hotels to quarantine individuals who are infected or suspected of being infected with COVID-19. Rather than using them for the general population, however, they’ve been forced to use them for detainees since last month.

ICE’s decision to not deport the five detainees with COVID-19 comes days after a Miami Herald story detailed how the Department of Homeland Security had planned to deport infected Haitian nationals. The Herald, which had obtained a copy of the flight manifest, confirmed the five detainees’ names were on the original deportation flight list.

Also on the manifest was Haiti death squad leader Emmanuel “Toto” Constant. His deportation was canceled after controversy erupted over his deportation to Haiti, where he had been convicted in absentia for a 1994 massacre.

Among those not on Monday’s flight: Stephan Etienne, 26, whose immigration ordeal was also first detailed by the Herald. Etienne is among the five who had tested positive. It is unclear whether the deportees were taken off the manifest because of their health condition or last-minute legal action in their immigration cases.

ICE spokeswoman Mary Houtmann confirmed that on Monday ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations “successfully completed a removal flight to repatriate 50 Haitian nationals. Of those removed, none tested positive for COVID-19.”

After confirming its first positive COVID-19 infection on March 19, Haiti is starting to see the disease rapidly spread. The coronavirus is now present in every region of the country, with the health ministry on Monday confirming 182 positive cases and 17 deaths. The 9.3 percent death rate is one of the highest in the Caribbean region.

Late Sunday night, a Haiti presidential panel, charged with advising the government on how to manage the coronavirus pandemic, called for the suspension of U.S. deportations of Haitian nationals until the deadly contagion is controlled.

The group — made up mostly of doctors and medical experts hand-picked by Haitian President Jovenel Moïse to advise him on steps to control the virus’ spread in Haiti — asked for a ban on any returnee who has not been tested for COVID-19.

“Transporting people potentially infected with SARS COV2 in an aircraft represents a high risk of contamination for all passengers including the crew,” the letter, addressed to Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe and obtained by the Herald, said. “Persons coming from these territories must be placed in quarantine and tested for COVID-19. This results in the use of human and material resources already limited in Haiti, especially in the health emergency context.”

Haitian authorities said they had been told by ICE last week that all deportees would be tested 72 hours before being flown to Port-au-Prince. But when the Herald checked with the wife of Etienne, who had twice tested positive, he still had not been retested for a third time as of Sunday, she said.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loc...242645496.html

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