Deportations despite coronavirus is Trump’s cruel, and usual, punishment of Haitians | Opinion
If the federal government is sincerely interested in containing the spread of the coronavirus, then it will stop the southbound flight set to leave on Tuesday, returning Haitians being deported to their thoroughly beleaguered country.
Unfortunately, the federal response to the presence and spread of the coronavirus in the United States has been so hesitant, so irresolute, that it’s hard to imagine that anyone at that level of administration is thinking logically — much less compassionately — about the impact of continued deportations to Haiti and other countries.
Instead, the Department of Homeland Security is knowingly lobbing a potential cluster bomb of coronavirus infection into a nation where community spread of the disease has been identified, in addition to its presence in the adjacent Dominican Republic.
Tuesday’s flight is scheduled to deport at least 14 Haitians and, perhaps, some Dominican citizens to Haiti. At least one deportee — nonviolent, one charge dismissed, according to his attorney — is known to have had high-risk exposure to the virus. He first was held in a Bristol County, Massachusetts, jail, which now is the subject of a lawsuit because of overcrowding in the midst of the pandemic. He then was transported to another jail, in Stratford County, New Hampshire — alongside a reportedly sick and feverish Pakistani detainee. The Haitian man was supervised by deputy who tested positive for COVID-19.
Virus incubators
That’s one detainee, with three potential exposures. Obviously, the problem is a lot more extensive. John Sandweg, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in The Atlantic last month that ICE detention centers “are extremely susceptible to outbreaks of infectious diseases.” He recommends that the Trump administration “release the thousands of nonviolent, low-flight-risk detainees” in ICE custody.
For Haiti’s part, Foreign Minister Claude Joseph said he has asked U.S. authorities repeatedly to postpone deportations to the island amid the coronavirus outbreak, “so we can get ready to accept them,” he told the Miami Herald.
But his requests have been ignored.
It remains shocking that doctors, nurses and so many other medical practitioners in the United States are scrambling for scarce resources and equipment to protect themselves and to give patients high-quality care. In Haiti, however, such scarcity has been the the norm during the best of times.
The country needs everything — intensive care beds, ventilators, personal protection equipment for the healthcare workers. In fact, through its embassies, Joseph has been seeking international donations of masks, ventilators and other medical gear.
Haiti can’t manage
Long story short, Haiti is dangerously unprepared to treat its current coronavirus patients. Its debilitated healthcare system cannot withstand the additional pressure even one infected deportee would bring.
If the utter cruelty of the deportations is not enough to get DHS to halt deportations, then President Jovenel Moïse himself should make the case that the Trump administration owes him one. After all, Moïse turned his back on his benefactor, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and recognized Maduro’s nemesis Juan Guaido as the country’s president. That should have delighted President Trump.
Still, the Trump administration has cut drastically USAID funds for Haiti’s destitute citizens and terminated the Haitian Family Reunification Program. Inflicting pain on Haiti seems to be a habit. Such cruelty should stop, however, starting with grounding the flight bearing Haitian deportees.