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Guatemalan Deportees from US Face Coronavirus Stigma

Megan Janetsky

   QUETZALTENANGO, GUATEMALA - Criminal. Failure. Degenerate.

   Those are some of the labels Guatemalan migrant deportees and returnees
   have faced for years as they arrive back from the United States.

   But now, coronavirus outbreaks connected to deportation flights from
   the U.S. have paved the wave for a new label: contagiados or the
   "infected."'¯

   Across Latin America --'¯in Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, Haiti
   --'¯people on U.S. deportation flights continue to test positive for
   coronavirus. In Guatemala, around 10% of the country's confirmed cases
   have come from the flights.

   In late April, the Guatemalan government reported that a'¯fifth of
   Guatemala's cases'¯were linked to such flights. Since, the number has
   only continued to jump and on Monday the Central American nation
   reported having nearly 1,912 COVID-19 infections and 35 deaths.

   The rising numbers have brought a growing wave of stigma, threats and
   violence against not just migrants, but the aid providers who are
   protecting them. Many returning migrants have even been forced out of
   the very communities they left to economically support.

   "They don't want people to return, so we're seeing this incredibly
   fuerte (strong) stigmatization." said Carlos López, director of the
   Guatemala City migrant shelter, La Casa del Migrante. "They're not
   aliens, they're not animals, but they're being deeply abused in some
   places."

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