Africa reacts to George Floyd death

US diplomats in Africa have said they are “profoundly troubled” by the death of George Floyd, in response to outrage from across the continent

According to reporting by the Associated Press, ambassadors and embassies in five different African countries have issued statements following the death of 46-year-old Floyd this week at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Diplomats spoke up as the head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, condemned the “murder” of Floyd and said his organisation rejects the “continuing discriminatory practices against black citizens of the USA”.

The US ambassador to Congo, Mike Hammer, highlighted a tweet from a local media entrepreneur who addressed him saying, “Dear ambassador, your country is shameful. Proud America, which went through everything from segregation to the election of Barack Obama, still hasn’t conquered the demons of racism. How many black people must be killed by white police officers before authorities react seriously?”

The ambassador’s response, in French, said: “I am profoundly troubled by the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The Justice Department is conducting a full criminal investigation as a top priority. Security forces around the world should be held accountable. No one is above the law.”

Similar statements were tweeted by the US embassies in Kenya and Uganda, while the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya tweeted a joint statement from the Department of Justice office in Minnesota on the investigation.

Updated at 7.05am EDT

           
FANM

Save The Date For Our June TPS Summit!

Family Action Network Movement (FANM) and Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) would like to cordially invite you to attend our annual TPS Summit on June 19th, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. It will take place virtually via Zoom. 

As you know, 300,000 TPS recipients from Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, and other nations may face removal early 2021. We are inviting you to lend your voice to our efforts to find a permanent solution that will allow them to stay in the United States and contribute to its social, economic and political fabric, which most have doing for an average of 15 to 30 years. You are also invited to a press conference immediately following the plenary session at 12 p.m. 

If you need further information, do not hesitate to contact FAMN. 

We hope you can join us!

FANM Urged ICE To Halt the Deportation Of Mass Murderer Emmanuel “Toto” Constant And COVID-19 Positive Detainees To Haiti On Tuesday, May 26th 2020.  

The flight manifest for ICE’s Tuesday, May 26th deportation flight from Brownsville, Texas to Haiti includes 78 names, among them notorious former death squad leader and U.S. criminal Emmanuel “Toto” Constant.  Emmanuel “Toto” Constant has been linked to the murders of at least 3,000 people in Haiti. He has not served his full 37 year sentence in the United States and his presence in Haiti now would be highly destabilizing. In addition, at least nine of the 78 scheduled deportees recently tested positive for coronavirus. Their presence risks turning the flight into a vector for coronavirus transmission among the other passengers, crew, and in Haiti itself. Family Action Network Movement (FANM) and other community leaders urged The Trump Administration to put a moratorium on deportations to Haiti and all other nations.

Marleine Bastien, Executive Director of Family Action Network Movement (FANM), stated, “The deportation of Emmanuel “Toto” Constant to Haiti endangers the entire country. Constant is a renowned human rights violator and his return during this time of crisis would cause even more political upheaval and chaos in Haiti. Deporting him and the nine sick detainees sets a dangerous precedent and the repercussions are irreparable.”

Daniella Levine Cava, County Commissioner District 8, stated, “ I am outraged once again. I am outraged and ashamed of the practices of detaining people in inhumane conditions during a pandemic. I am outraged that it was delayed so long at the federal level to offer testing. Release is really what's needed. These are not people who have committed crimes. All of that is shameful. It is shameful to create the risk of disease spread not only to those who are together in detention but also to the employees who then carry it home to their families and loved ones promoting community spread. This is a totally irresponsible lack of action and denial on the part of ICE when it comes to the COVID pandemic for those that are in their custody and that I decry.” 

Marie Paule Woodson, FANM Board Chair, stated, “We have seen how much this pandemic is ravaging the United States, who is one of the greatest nations on Earth. Just think of Haiti, where you don't have a healthcare system that works for the people, where you don't have the infrastructure that is needed, where people are walking on the streets. You cannot find sanitizers in the United States of America. Think about Haiti. What can you find? Now ICE has made the decision to send Emmanuel “Toto” Constant to Haiti. I want people to get this clearly. It’s not that we are saying not to deport a mass murderer. That's not what we are saying. We are saying that this is not the time to send someone who has committed such atrocities. We are saying that the United States has a better prison system where he can stay and not harm anybody else. Second, because of COVID, deporting so many COVID detainees to Haiti would make the matter worse.”  

Brian Concannon, former Executive Director of The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), stated, “The US is planning to tomorrow promote injustice in Haiti, once again. Emmanuel Constant has been found responsible for mass murder, rape and grand larceny by three courts in two countries. When Haiti's government was willing and able to prosecute Constant 20 years ago, the US refused to deport him once he threatened to reveal the details of CIA support for his FRAPH death squad. Haiti now has a government that is engaging in the same type of attacks against pro-democracy activists that Constant and FRAPH committed in the 1990s. Sending Constant back to Haiti in the current context is endangering the lives of democracy supporters throughout the country."

Steve Forester, Immigration Policy Coordinator for IJDH, stated, “The United States is disrespecting and endangering Haiti and its people by intending to deport known coronavirus-positive persons. Haitian President Moise should follow the advice of his scientific advisors by halting deportations from the United States during the pandemic, which threatens to devastate an ill-prepared Haiti.” 

Tessa Petit,  Executive Director of Hatian American Community Development Corporation (HACDC), stated, “Haiti is now at the state where it has on average 98-100 new cases per day. Haiti is now facing what the people in the biggest slums of Port-Au-Prince are calling a fever epidemic. People are collapsing while walking up and down the streets. I’ve seen videos of ambulances driving by and picking up dead bodies on the side of the road. This is how bad it is. Any more people who are COVID-19 positive would just make the situation worse.”  

Call President Trump today at 202-456-1111 and demand the President put a moratorium on all deportations to Haiti and other nations during this pandemic.  Please Call your Representatives today as well. 

Family Action Network Movement (FANM) formerly known as Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami, Inc)/ Haitian Women of Miami is a private not-for-profit organization dedicated to the social, economic, financial and political empowerment of low to moderate-income families to give them the tools to transform their communities.

In Unity,

Marleine Bastien, MSW, LCSW

Executive Director

Family Action Network Movement (FANM)

       

How are migrants tested before deportation?

      Jacqueline Charles Monique Madan

      Miami Herald Mai 29th 2020

The Department of Homeland Security is only testing a sample of the detainees it is removing from the United States and using a 15-minute rapid test to determine if they have the coronavirus.

The response by DHS to a Miami Herald inquiry comes as immigration advocates continue to call for an end to deportations amid surging COVID-19 infections in Latin America and the Caribbean and as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns about the accuracy of the test being used, called the Abbott ID NOW. 

Earlier this month, the FDA cautioned that early data “suggests potential inaccurate results from using the Abbott ID NOW point-of-care test to diagnose COVID-19. Specifically, the test may return false negative results.”

Made by Abbott Laboratories, the test, promoted by the Trump administration, is said to provide inaccurate results that could have patients falsely believing they are not infected with the coronavirus. 

In response to the FDA’s warning, a spokesperson with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said their health officials were “provided the rapid tests through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

Guatemala’s government has confirmed that some returning migrants are still testing positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, since being deported by ICE. All arrive with clean bill of health documents showing they had tested negative for COVID-19.

The infections were detected after the Guatemalan health ministry did a random testing of the arriving detainees, all of whom are supposed to be tested by ICE before deportation under a protocol negotiated by the Guatemalan government with the Trump administration.

In April, Guatemala created a political firestorm when it suspended deportations from the U.S. until the Trump administration agreed to test all of its migrants before returning them. The announcement was made after health officials reported that at least 70 deported Guatemalan migrants tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival. 

Darcy Ross, of Abbott, defended the test, saying “studies suggest ID NOW performs best in patients tested earlier post symptom onset” and “delivers results in minutes rather than days, [allowing] people with symptoms to take action before they infect others.”

Abbot ID NOW is among nearly 70 rapid tests that have been granted emergency authorization from the FDA to test for COVID-19. But as the U.S. begins to reopen and testing for the virus expands, questions have emerged about the accuracy of such tests.

Dr. Tim Stenzel, director of the FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, warned: “Negative results may need to be confirmed with a high-sensitivity authorized molecular test.”

Immigration activists say the fact that DHS is trying to find a cheaper and faster alternative to testing for migrants in their custody prior to deporting them does not address their criticism that the Trump administration is exporting COVID-19 to vulnerable countries and endangering their populations.

“It shows how little ICE is concerned about spreading COVID-19 to other countries,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel with the Washington-based American Immigration Council. 

Ur M. Jaddou, director of DHS Watch, a project of America’s Voice, another immigration advocacy group, added: “It’s all really concerning; first of all the sampling and secondly, the type of testing they are using.”

Since the coronavirus started spreading across the U.S. in March, the U.S. has operated 135 deportation flights into the region, Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told members of congress Friday.

Scores of migrants have been deported back to their home countries after the Trump administration warned foreign governments that they risk sanctions like visa cancellations if they refuse to accept their nationals. Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica, which received a flight on Thursday, have all reported COVID-19 infections in returning migrants. 

After Guatemala stopped accepting deportees, the Trump administration deployed a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the country to investigate its testing methodology.

After the CDC confirmed there were indeed detainees with the virus, Guatemala negotiated to have all of its nationals tested before they’re deported from the U.S. ICE said it has been testing all Guatemalan migrants since April 26 prior to removing them from the U.S. 

In late April, ICE said it would acquire approximately 2,000 tests a month from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but warned that given the nationwide shortages, it likely “won’t have enough to test all aliens scheduled for future removals.”

On Tuesday, DHS recited the same national shortage problem, but specified that only a “sample” of detainees are being tested prior to boarding ICE flights.

“Under such a scenario, ICE would test a sample of the population and provide the respective foreign government with results,” an ICE spokesperson said in an email.

ICE confirmed that it removed 30 Haitian nationals from the United States on Tuesday. It tested only 16 detainees, a spokesperson said, and one of them tested positive after being issued a rapid test. The detainee was not deported and instead returned to a detention facility, ICE said. 

But at least eight of the detainees on that ICE Air deportation flight, Haiti’s eighth since February, had recently tested positive for the coronavirus and at least one reported having a fever, difficulty breathing symptoms and pain in his chest and legs. He was among those deported, advocates say.

During a federal court hearing in Miami on Wednesday, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing ICE told a federal judge that the agency is not conducting COVID-19 testing on every detainee who gets transferred from one detention center to another. Instead, he said, ICE is only testing people who have symptoms — a protocol that has led the agency to transfer detainees who are asymptomatic while infected with the virus.

“Additionally, in an effort to avoid removing aliens with active COVID-19 cases, on April 26, 2020, ICE began testing some aliens in custody and prior to removal,” the agency said in a statement. “Where DHS/ICE deems detainee testing is warranted/appropriate by specific bilateral agreement, ICE coordinates with foreign governments to prioritize testing of detainees per evolving operational considerations.” 

Immigration advocates say that while the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince has shared ICE’s protocol with the Haitian government and Congress, it failed to specify that rapid tests were being used or that only a sample of the Haitians slated for deportation were being tested. 

“It’s inexcusable for ICE to test a small fraction of detainees and then deport, relying on a test the FDA calls unreliable because it gives false negatives,” said Steve Forester, immigration policy coordinator for the Boston-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.

According to the protocol, individuals scheduled for removal to Haiti will be tested by ICE for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their departure from the U.S. Anyone testing positive will be removed from the flight. Prior to the flight’s boarding, a DHS nurse rechecks each individual’s written medical document, which includes the results, to ensure all are negative. A copy of the clean bill of health summary for each detainee is provided to the Haitian ministry of health representative upon the flight’s arrival in Port-au-Prince.

The concerns of immigration activists is bolstered by reports from detainees and their families that even after testing positive for COVID-19, they are not always given a retest to ensure they are negative before being returned to the general population.

They also note that Haiti, which has a limited number of tests and has started to see infections sharply rise, does not endorse rapid testing due to the probability for false negatives. “Our position on rapid testing has not changed,” said Dr. Jean William “Bill” Pape, the co-president of a presidential commission overseeing the COVID-19 response in Haiti. 

Ashish Jha, director of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, said that not testing all detainees is “the biggest problem of all.”

“This is part of a broader problem of having such little testing capacity in our country. Everybody is having to choose between bad choices,” Jha said. “But sampling does not get you out of this. By not testing everyone you are running a major risk in spreading the virus not just to those that are healthy on the plane but to other countries.”

U.S. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, shared Jha’s concerns. She was unaware, she said, that DHS was using rapid testing, or only testing a handful of detainees being returned to Haiti. 

“Most of our airplanes are grounded because air traffic is not safe. What makes them think the airports are safe for detainees? They are still human beings; why expose them? What is the purpose of this?” Wilson said.

On Friday, Wilson hosted a virtual forum on Haiti, titled: “An Impending Crisis: COVID-19 in Haiti, Ongoing Instability, and the Dangers of Continued U.S. Deportations..” The event featured House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, activists and planning experts and other lawmakers representing large Haitian-American constituencies. 

The ongoing deportations to Haiti, which is starting to run out of available beds for infected coronavirus patients, led the discussions. As lawmakers expressed support for Wilson’s Haitian Deportation Relief Act, which calls for the suspension of the removals, they, along with the invited speakers, also accused the Trump administration of being inhumane and making an already bad situation in Haiti worse.

“Haiti is facing a crisis right now and the Trump administration’s cruel deportation policy is adding fuel to the fire,” said Engel, D-NY “It’s downright barbaric the Trump administration has been deporting Haitian nationals with coronavirus back to a country we all know is too fragile to handle a serious outbreak.” 

Wilson said Republican senators are her biggest obstacle to getting the legislation passed, so she and other supporters of her bill are asking voters to tell their senators to pass it.

“Why are we moving people around during this virus knowing we have cases of coronavirus in the detention centers, and among staff? What is the point?” Wilson said. “Let everyone shelter in place, treat those who show symptoms, test those who are exposed and leave the people alone. I don’t understand the method behind the madness of deporting people during a pandemic.”