US Deporting Migrants Carrying Coronavirus to Home Countries

As ImmigrationProf readers know from our numerous posts this past month, immigration enforcement has continued during the covid19 response. Immigration courts keep moving cases (even if remotely) and ICE detention facilities remain open (despite some notable releases of vulnerable detainees following legal challenges). Deportations continue. Construction on the border wall continues. One inevitable outcome is that thousands of migrants have been returned to their home countries, including some who are sick with the virus, spreading disease contracted in the US to places ill-equipped to manage their health care.

For example, the Guatemalan government says between 30-70 migrants flown home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since late March tested positive for the coronavirus after returning. And deportations of unaccompanied children and teenagers who arrived at the border, who typically would have stayed in shelters while pursuing their asylum claims, have been summarily deported under enhanced restrictions at the border.

The consequences will have ripple effects in the global pandemic and raise legal and ethical questions about US responsibility, as countries begin to refuse deportees and upon accepting struggle to provide needed health care.

MHC