U.S. immigration authorities did not deport five detainees back to Haiti on Monday who had tested positive for the deadly COVID-19 respiratory disease, Haitian officials have been told.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight, which landed in Port-au-Prince from San Antonio, Texas, shortly before 1 p.m. Monday, also was expected to have only 50 people — 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.
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.
Also 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 taken off the manifest because of their health condition or last-minute legal action in their immigration cases.
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.
On Monday, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, introduced the Haitian Deportation Relief Act, which calls for the suspension of deportations of Haitian nationals until the COVID-19 pandemic has ended in both the United States and Haiti. The legislation also requires DHS to prioritize for alternatives to detention migrants whose detention has been deferred and who do not pose a public safety risk.
Wilson, who represents one of the largest communities of Haitian-American voters, said that on April 10 President Donald Trump issued a memo instructing consular officials to stop processing U.S. visas for countries that do not accept repatriated migrants.
“Continuing these flights will likely contribute to the spread of the novel coronavirus in the impoverished nation where many people do not have access to basic health care.,” said Wilson, citing a recent survey that showed there are only 124 intensive care unit beds for Haiti’s nearly 12 million citizens. The survey also revealed that health care facilities have the capacity to ventilate just 62 patients.
“That is tantamount to a death sentence for Haitians who are living with compromised water and sanitation systems and do not have access to the sanitation measures we’ve undertaken in the United States,” Wilson added.
As of Friday, 788 ICE detainees nationwide who have been administered a COVID-19 test had tested positive for the virus. It’s unclear who among the Haitian detainees on Monday’s flight was in that group. ICE does not provide that information. (Miami Herald)
