How the US uses covid-19 to threaten migrants

Recently, the US Embassy in Guatemala began publishing a series of social media posts in Spanish urging Guatemalans neither to migrate nor to send their children to the US due to covid-19. Almost all of the posts have pictures of children, toddlers and babies. One of the most damning and heart-wrenching images reads: “Do not sacrifice your children: the coyotes do not care if your child catches covid-19, if they die, or if the gangs abuse them. When children travel alone to the US, they become victims of a dangerous journey. The lives of your children are your responsibility.” The picture, which covers more than half of the post, is one of eight-year-old Felipe Gómez Alonzo (Chuj-Maya), from Yalambojoch, Huehuetenango, who died in detention on Christmas Eve 2018 “of influenza B complicated by a staph bacterial infection that led to sepsis”. Unlike the post suggests, Felipe did not die from covid-19 or gangs. Instead, he died due to the US’ violent immigration and detention policies. The US is responsible for his death.

The US is weaponizing covid-19 to threaten migrant lives and including it in their violent deterrence policies based on terror, fear and necroviolence. Another post on the Embassy’s social media reads: “The Coyotes do not care about your safety. Small and enclosed spaces increase the risk of infection of covid-19.” US immigration detention centers are known for their horrible conditions of overcrowding, cramped spaces, unsanitary practices, and human rights abuses. Detainees often do not receive medical services, even if they are sick. According to ICE, as of May 9, there were 27,908 people detained, of which only 2,045 have been tested for coronavirus. Nearly half of them were tested positive, with 986 confirmed cases. On May 6, Carlos Ernesto Escobar-Mejia, who fled the Salvadoran Civil War and lived in the US for 40 years, became the first reported case of someone dying in detention from covid-19, at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, in California. On May 13, Alonzo Garza-Salazar, from Mexico, died from covid-19 while detained at the Corley Detention Facility, in Texas, where it is reported that up to 32 men can share one room, making social distancing nearly impossible. There are over 1,500 unaccompanied minors in detention, where one in three children tested for covid-19 between March and May were positive. Only 12% of these children in detention have been tested. The US has refused releasing children from detention centers and instead have deported them. In April, the US deported 600 minors.

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The US has exported covid-19 without any concern for the health of migrants and their home countries. A post suggesting deportation due to covid-19 reads: “If you try to enter the US in an illegal manner, you can catch covid-19 and you won’t enter.” Another one says: “The illegal journey to the US lasts between 20 and 30 days. Upon arriving to the southern border, you will be returned to Mexico in just 96 minutes.” It was estimated that those deported from the US to Guatemala in late April made up “20% of the 500 cases in Guatemala.” US Congresswoman Norma Torres has claimed that “these deportations are exporting death.”

The US Embassy’s social media posts are designed to criminalize migrants and places blame on them for any harm that may come about with migrating. They eschew a harsh reality of cruel US policies that have murdered migrants and children and have committed human rights abuses against them. The US’ use of covid-19 to create fear and threaten migrants, as well as the use of pictures like Felipe’s and other children’s, is shameful.

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Note. Since finishing this article on the morning of May 16, the Embassy has deleted some of their social media posts.

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Read it in Spanish here.