Virus fear turns deportees into pariahs at home

GUATEMALA CITY (AP): MIGRANTS RETURNING from the United States (US) were once considered heroes in Guatemala, where the money they send back to their hometowns is a mainstay of the economy.

But since the coronavirus pandemic hit, migrants in town after town have been mistreated, scared off or threatened by neighbours who fear they will bring the virus back with them from the United States.

Similar mistreatment is being reported across Latin America and the Caribbean. In Haiti, police are guarding a hotel full of quarantined deportees from the US – partly to prevent them from escaping and partly to stop attacks from neighbours frightened of the coronavirus.

For immigrants already shaken by the Trump administration’s hard line on deportation, mistreatment at home is a further blow, and a disturbing illustration of how the pandemic is upending long-standing social norms in unexpected ways across the world.

NEIGHBOURS PLOTTING

Vanessa Díaz said her mother heard rumours that neighbours were organising to keep her from reaching her home in the northern province of Petén after she was deported back to Guatemala on a flight from the United States.

Díaz had to run inside with her seven-year-old son and hide when she arrived.

“When we arrived, my mother said, ‘Get out of the car and run into the house.’ She was afraid they were going to do something to us,” Díaz recalled.

The Guatemalan government says at least 100 migrants deported from the United States between late March and mid-April have tested positive for COVID-19. Even those who, like Díaz, are not infected – she was placed in quarantine at home for two weeks after arriving last month on a flight where nobody tested positive – carry the stigma.

“The assistant mayor was going around egging people on, because they wanted to kick me and my son out of my house,” Díaz said.

The fear hasn’t subsided; Díaz’s mother must shop for food for them all, because her daughter doesn’t dare venture out. The mother has filed a complaint with police, because she’s afraid neighbours might yet attack the house.

AP Deported Guatemalan Vanessa Diaz looks towards her family as she picks up the food they brought her, identified by her name, at the site where Guatemalans returned from the US are being held in quarantine for two weeks in Guatemala City.