Thousands of Americans are stuck abroad due to coronavirus. US brings 466 of them home
Thousands of Americans have been trapped overseas trying to find a way home after foreign governments closed their borders and airports to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of State have been operating removal flights to get U.S. citizens back home from around the world.
The two agencies have operated three flights from Honduras and El Salvador since Sunday, rescuing 466 Americans. On the third flight Friday from Central America, 257 U.S. citizens were brought home.
On Monday, a senior State Department official said the government was tracking some 13,500 U.S. citizens abroad who need help getting back to the states. It’s estimated 10 million U.S. citizens live or are traveling overseas.
The State Department said Monday that since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, about 5,700 Americans have been brought back to the U.S. from 17 countries, the majority flown on State Department chartered aircraft.
One of the families rescued from Honduras was Miami-Dade residents Richard Hubbard, his wife Cynthia Hubbard Arevalo and their in-laws Roberto Avila and Dunia Avila.
Hubbard, 58, told the Miami Herald on Saturday his family and about 90 other Americans flew into Norfolk, Virginia on Wednesday aboard a U.S. Air Force C-130.
“[It] was a very uncomfortable and noisy six-hour flight but I was glad to be back home,” he said.
The four then took an overnight American Airlines flight to Miami International Airport on Thursday and began their 14-day self isolation.
Hubbard and his party flew into Honduras on March 13 and planned to fly out on March 16, but the day before their planned departure the Honduran government closed the borders and canceled all flights.
Hubbard was told the airport would reopen March 29. In the meantime, he went to the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, where they were staying.
He said he was told to register with a STEP program, is a service that registers U.S. citizens traveling abroad with a local embassy. He was also informed at least 2,000 other Americans were trapped in the country.
Other than that, he said, the family went almost a week without hearing from the embassy. Calls to the embassy produced only one response: “We are waiting on instructions.”
“We are stuck, it seems, with no help or advise from the U.S. government,” Hubbard said at the time.
As they sheltered in their relatives’ home, the novel coronavirus pandemic raged outside. Hubbard says the city was on “total lockdown,” and food and supplies were being rationed. Clean water was delivered, not run through pipes.
If someone had to leave the home, they would wear masks and gloves, then shower on their return.
“We were OK as we thought we would be flying home Monday,” Hubbard said earlier in the week. “Now panic has set in as no one seems to know what’s going on.”
The family was given a glimmer of hope Sunday when the embassy told them they had four seats on a flight home from San Pedro Sula, a Honduran city about a five-hour drive from Tegucigalpa.
They weren’t told if it would be a civilian airline or a military plane, but were told they would have to meet at a hotel early in the morning, pass a medical screening then take a bus to the airplane.
A few hours after hearing they would finally be going home, the embassy told them the flight had been canceled.
On Tuesday, the family was told again they had seats on a flight, this one leaving from a military base an hour from where they were staying. After going through a medical check, Hubbard and his group flew from Honduras to Virginia.
ICE said it will continue to work with the State Department to bring more U.S. citizens home on flights from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
This story was originally published March 28, 2020 at 7:43 PM.
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