Many refugees on US deportation flight to Guatemala had coronavirus: Official

Government officials stand next to a plane carrying migrants deported from the US at La Aurora International airport, in Guatemala City. (Photo by Reuters)

A large number of refugees deported by US immigration authorities to Guatemala this week were infected with the coronavirus, the Guatemalan president has said as Washington pressures the poor Central American state to keep accepting deported asylum seekers.

“A large part of it was infected,” said President Alejandro Giammattei in a televised address on Friday, referring to a flight carrying 73 Guatemalans that left the United States for Guatemala City on Monday.

Monday’s flight has been at the center of a political controversy since Guatemala’s Health Minister Hugo Monroy revealed this week that up to 75% of passengers placed on a deportation flight by American authorities were infected with the COVID-19 virus, according to a Reuters report.

This is while an AP report later cited a Guatemalan official as saying that 44 people on the Monday flight from the US were infected with the virus.

The development came as the Trump administration continues to pressure Guatemala to keep receiving deported refugees despite rising concerns in the impoverished nation that returnees are bringing the virus with them and could spread it to remote communities with no access to medical care.

It is not clear when and how the asylum seekers has become infected before being deported to Guatemala. There have been 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers working in the agency’s detention facilities, including 13 at the Alexandria Staging Facility in the state of Louisiana, ICE data shows.

Flights deporting Guatemalans from the United States were temporarily suspended on Thursday after reports of the mass infection. Deportation flights had resumed again on Monday after a five-day suspension because of earlier infections.

Neither US embassy in Guatemala nor ICE authorities in charge of operating the deportation flights have so far responded to press inquiries about the controversy.

Meanwhile, the Guatemalan president further stated that 12 randomly selected refugees on the deportation flight had tested positive for coronavirus when examined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggesting that more on the flight had tested positive as well.