Mexico City, January 4 Carlos Escobar, a 57-year-old Salvadoran, failed to welcome 2021 with relatives and friends.
With nine days left in 2021, the Escobar family sued the U.S. government and a private company that operates an illegal immigration detention center for negligently, accusing them of improper epidemic prevention measures and untimely rescue, causing Escobar to die of contracting the novel coronavirus.
Escobar spent four months in the detention center for illegal immigrants. After he had obvious symptoms, he repeatedly asked for medical treatment, but he was ignored. After that, due to his serious condition, the detention center had to send him to the hospital, but it was too late.
In 2020, the coronavirus epidemic swept the world. The United States has been the country with the worst epidemic for several months. So far, it has not improved. The number of confirmed cases has exceeded 20 million and the number of deaths has exceeded 350,000. The data is terrible.
In such a bad environment, some special institutions and special groups are in a more worrying situation. According to U.S. media reports, there have been more than 8,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in illegal immigration detention centers across the United States, and at least eight people have died directly in detention centers.
In July 2020, after three months in an illegal immigration detention center in Arizona, the southern United States, Eraldo Marembrez, a 38-year-old Guatemalan, contracted the novel coronavirus.
“High fever, pain all over the body, vomiting what you eat, and no sense of taste. I feel terrible, like a chronic suicide.” The memories are terrible.
Fortunately, Malembres saved his life. Two months later, he was repatriated to Guatemala by the United States.
However, it is lucky to be repatriated in a rehabilitation situation like Marembrez.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement-administered Illegal Immigration Detention Center reported the first confirmed case on March 24, 2020. However, it was not until May that the U.S. authorities gradually carried out large-scale testing in illegal immigration detention centers around the country under pressure from all walks of life. According to U.S. media reports, a large number of Latin American immigrants have been repatriated without testing for the novel coronavirus during this period.
According to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a US think tank, from March 8 to May 9, the United States sent 112 “repatriation flights” to 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries.
At that time, it was at the window of the outbreak of the epidemic in the United States, and the “effect” of the epidemic spillover can be imagined! ” The repatriation flight may have become the “drug delivery flight”.
Carlos, a 31-year-old Salvadoran (alias), was sent to a “repatriation flight” after spending two and a half months in a detention center “like a big tent” and “crowded everywhere”. But he didn’t get a coronavirus test until he boarded the plane.
Upon his return to El Salvador, Carlos was immediately examined and began to quarantine. Two people who returned home on the same plane as him were diagnosed.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. According to many foreign media reports, from March to April, Guatemala, Colombia, Haiti, Jamaica and other countries, which had not yet risen at that time, were forced to receive coronavirus patients from “repatriation flights” from the United States.
According to statistics, during the epidemic, the United States deported more than 8,800 illegal minors without guardians and returned them to their home countries. The United Nations Children’s Fund strongly condemns this practice of increasing the risk of infection among minors.
According to the New York Times, the United States, the country with the largest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world, has repatriated thousands of people who may have been infected with the novel coronavirus to poor countries that are unable to deal with the virus, which is tantamount to “exporting the virus”.
More than 60 institutions, including the Latin American Institute in Washington, issued a joint statement condemning the continued expulsion of illegal immigrants by the U.S. government during the global outbreak, saying that the act “places the whole world at risk”.
Mario Ohda, a researcher at the Latin American Research Center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, believes that during the epidemic, the Trump administration still recklessly repatriates Latin American immigrants in large numbers, which is in line with its own alien immigration policies and harsh measures that have been contrary to the humanitarian spirit since he took office.
“The pandemic is the perfect excuse for the U.S. government to tighten immigration policy further.” “Rudolf Garcia, an immigration expert at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico, said.
Can the epidemic serve as an excuse to violate humanitarianism? Can it be used as an excuse for “output viruses”?
Seeing the chaos of the epidemic in the United States, Ndombe John, a 32-year-old Democratic Republic of the Congo, does not want to have an “American dream” anymore, for fear of becoming a nightmare.
John originally arrived in southern Mexico from the Democratic Republic of the Congo via Cuba, Panama and Costa Rica, and finally arrived in the United States. Now, he has changed his mind, applied for refugee status in Mexico, and found a job as an electrician.
“The immigration policy of the United States is too unfriendly, and discrimination against blacks is everywhere. Going to the United States is no longer my dream. I’d better stay in Mexico to work for money.
