Unsanitized: Court Ruling Could Trigger Mass Deportation Into a Pandemic

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Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

Unsanitized-091520

A courthouse for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

First Response

The most shocking news yesterday came from a whistleblower named Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center, an ICE facility operated by private prison company LaSalle Corrections. Wooten, in a complaint to the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, described a train of horrors at the detention center, including failures to inform detainees and staff about COVID-19 outbreaks, lack of protective equipment, a refusal to test detainees showing symptoms, and retaliation against those who protest these decisions. The most disturbing allegation involved doctors at the facility performing numerous hysterectomies on detainees for unknown or questionable reasons. ICE didn’t really deny any of this in their statement, just saying that “unproven” allegations should be met with skepticism.

The immigration Gestapo engaging in medical experiments of subjects under their control is unforgivable and wrong. But another ICE-related operation given tentative approval yesterday could send hundreds of thousands of people into COVID-related danger.

A three-judge panel on the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the Trump administration could go forward with its plans to remove Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from immigrants living in the U.S. from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. This was the “shithole countries” case, where plaintiffs argued that Trump’s remark, which was in reference to Haiti and El Salvador and why we would want people from those places in the country, showed racial animus that violated the equal protection clause. The judges deemed the statement offensive but said it had no link to the decision to wind down TPS (he literally said “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out,” and then set a policy to take them out). The 2-1 ruling fell along party lines.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports

If the Supreme Court backs up the ruling that revoking TPS is unreviewable, then 300,000 non-citizens and 200,000 U.S. children of non-citizens could be shipped back to their home countries after 120 days of the final court order. That would be as early as next March, if the Supreme Court refused to take up the case. Children would have to decide whether to separate from their parents or go to a country they have never known. (A separate legal agreement would also implicate another close to 100,000 immigrants from Honduras and Nepal with this ruling.)

A deal with the Salvadoran government would enable immigrants from that country to stay in the U.S. up to a year after the ruling, in exchange for the government blocking asylum seekers headed to the U.S. who pass through El Salvador. They would have until next November, at the earliest. Obviously that’s beyond the timeframe of the election, and Joe Biden has vowed to extend TPS to these immigrants, some of whom have been in the country for decades. So that’s another set of stakes in an election with a shelf full.

One of the reasons for TPS protection, in addition to a home country under armed conflict, a natural disaster, or some other factor that makes a guarantee of safe return impossible, is an epidemic. According to Johns Hopkins, there have been 8,400 cases and 219 deaths in Haiti; 27,000 cases and 792 deaths in El Salvador; 4,800 cases and 144 deaths in Nicaragua; and 13,000 cases and 836 deaths in Sudan. (Honduras has suffered 68,000 cases and over 2,000 deaths, while Nepal has 56,000 cases and 371 deaths.)

These are almost certainly an undercount, given the state of health systems in the developing world. We have seen examples of large uncounted dead in developing countries. In addition, global health and development has absolutely cratered during the pandemic, with poverty rising and vaccinations falling. An influx of immigrants from the United States, site of the worst outbreak in the world, could worsen and exacerbate the epidemic in these countries.

In addition, over 100,000 TPS holders have served in essential workplaces during COVID-19, according to the plaintiffs. “Many TPS holders from these four countries have been on the frontlines of our nation’s response with little to no relief and living under the fear of deportation,” said Hans Van de Weerd, Vice President of Resettlement, Asylum, and Integration at the International Rescue Committee. “Every TPS holder deserves safety and stability.”

Maybe by next March or next November, COVID-19 will be a memory, enabling safe passage abroad. But that’s unlikely, especially in the developing world. Vaccine production will roll out slowly and almost certainly to richer countries first. Bill Gates is talking about hoping that the pandemic “doesn’t stretch past 2022.” Inevitably, countries like Haiti and El Salvador will be among the last to get true protections for its citizens. So sending back TPS holders will absolutely put them at risk.

A second chance could come in the form another ruling yesterday that Chad Wolf, the acting homeland security chief, is operating in his job illegally, voiding his decisions. But the TPS decisions were put in place by his predecessor Kirstjen Nielsen, so that’s probably a dead end.

Health is absolutely a factor in whether to extend TPS, both here and abroad. We will suffer with fewer frontline workers and the workers will suffer by being pushed out. They may even be carriers, and cause infections in the countries to which they are sent. It’s not like the U.S. is exactly safe ground from the coronavirus, but in the time frames under issue here, this would almost certainly consign hundreds of thousands of people to a worse outcome. And all for the extreme racial animus of Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. Again, the election stakes are high.

Odds and Sods

At the Prospect today, Bob Kuttner has a good piece on how the Treasury Department is as much to blame as the Federal Reserve for denying aid to smaller businesses and state and local governments. The bailout programs are really a team sport.

Also, yesterday Brittany Gibson singled out Virginia as one state making voting easier rather than harder during the pandemic.

An update on my piece from last week about business interruption insurance: there’s now a global component, as policyholders in Australia, France, and the UK challenge their denials.

As always, please offer your comments, tips, and perspectives via email.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

173.

Today I Learned

• Late to this, but Greg Jaffe’s portrait of a squatter motel near Disney World is cinematic, brilliant, and tough to read. (Washington Post)
• Another bad court ruling disqualifies Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s coronavirus restrictions. (Allentown Morning Call)
• That executive order to reopen meatpacking plants was written by the meatpacking industry. (ProPublica)
• Parents whose kids are attending in-person schooling can no longer take paid leave, according to new federal coronavirus guidelines. (19^th News)
• Trump is incredibly underwater on his COVID response, and that’s the story of the election, so draw your own conclusions. (ABC News)
• An arthritis drug is part of a cocktail that’s helping patients recover faster from the virus. (Wall Street Journal)
• Downballot Democrats starting to knock on doors again, as Biden’s team resists canvassing in the pandemic. (Politico)
• Airlines are selling “flights to nowhere” that take off and land at the same location, so if you want all the discomfort of flying without actually going anywhere, have at it. (CNBC)