Tag Archives: Deportation

Biden’s ‘parole-in-place’ plan to shield half a million illegal immigrants, lead to uptick in marriage fraud

Border Patrol agents process migrants

Important Takeaways:

  • Top immigration experts are hammering the Biden administration over its plan to establish so-called “parole-in-place” qualifications for illegal immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens.
  • The idea of parole-in-place stemmed from a memo crafted by President Bill Clinton in 1998 and has been used since 2016 to categorize non-citizen immediate family members of U.S. Service Members.
  • A forthcoming executive order expanding the construct is expected to shield as many as half a million illegal immigrants from deportation.
  • Former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said, “This administration has done nothing to secure the border – they’re playing a shell game. This is just another enticement… for more illegal aliens to cross the border to take advantage of a giveaway program.”
  • Another expert on the issue said that whether parole-in-place allows 500,000 or many more people to come to or stay in the U.S., it essentially creates a 51st state.
  • Homan, who served in the Trump administration, previously said he hopes to help establish a “historic deportation program” if the real estate mogul is elected in November.

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Biden administration moves to protect ‘Dreamers’ from deportation

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – The Biden administration proposed a rule on Monday that would move an estimated 700,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children to the back of the line to be deported, in a bid to preserve an Obama-era program recently struck down by a judge.

The proposal from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program first launched in 2012, the agency said, and ensure that productive young people with few ties to their home countries are not deported.

DACA beneficiaries, known as “Dreamers,” receive work authorization, access to driver’s licenses and better access, for some, to financial aid for education, but not a path to citizenship.

To be eligible for DACA, individuals must have been younger than 16 when they arrived in the United States and continuously resided in the country for five years. They also must have a high-school diploma or the equivalent and have not been convicted of any felonies or other serious crimes.

In a July ruling, a Texas federal judge said DACA was illegally created by former President Barack Obama and blocked DHS from accepting new applications to the program. The Biden administration is appealing that decision.

DHS on Monday said in the meantime, it made sense to focus its limited resources on deporting individuals who knowingly entered the U.S. illegally.

The proposal will be formally published on Tuesday, kicking off a 60-day public comment period.

The proposed rule is particularly important after a bid by U.S. Senate Democrats to insert a path to citizenship for Dreamers in a budget bill hit a roadblock last week, according to Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School.

“While Democrats will try to find other ways to provide a path to a green card for Dreamers, the proposed rule could be a temporary safety net for Dreamers if legislation fails,” Yale-Loehr said.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in New York; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S. envoy resigns over expulsions to Haiti from Texas camp

By Daina Beth Solomon

CIUDAD ACUNA (Reuters) -The U.S. envoy to Haiti dramatically resigned on Thursday in a letter that excoriated Washington for deporting hundreds of migrants to the crisis-engulfed Caribbean nation from a border camp in recent days.

The resignation was confirmed by a senior official at the U.S. State Department.

“I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants,” Daniel Foote said in a letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that circulated publicly on Thursday.

Foote, a career diplomat named in July as special envoy to Haiti, said conditions in the country were so bad that U.S. officials were confined to secure compounds. He said the “collapsed state” was unable to support the infusion of returning migrants.

His resignation follows growing pressure on the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden from the United Nations and fellow Democrats over the treatment of Haitians in a migrant camp in Texas near the Mexican border.

As many as 14,000 people gathered in the camp last week, with the population now reduced to less than half by expulsion flights and detentions. Others have left the dusty riverbank for Mexico to avoid being sent home.

Images of U.S. border guards on horseback using long reins to whip at Black asylum seekers at the weekend caused outrage within the White House and from rights groups.

The United States has returned 1,401 migrants from the camp at Del Rio, Texas, to Haiti and taken another 3,206 people into custody, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said late on Wednesday.

Wade McMullen, an attorney with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization, said several hundred people, mostly pregnant women and parents with children, had been released in Del Rio, Texas, over the past several days.

The deportations came amid profound instability in the Caribbean nation, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, where a presidential assassination, gang violence and a major earthquake have spread chaos in recent weeks.

Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N refugee agency, warned that the U.S. expulsions to Haiti might violate international law.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Ciudad Acuna, Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Kristina Cooke, Editing by Laura Gottesdiener and Nick Zieminski)

U.S. to speed up asylum processing at border while fast-tracking deportations

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration will speed up processing of asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border while also fast-tracking expulsions of some migrant families, according to a plan unveiled by the White House on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has reversed many of the restrictive immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump. But border arrests have risen to 20-year highs in recent months, fueling attacks by Republicans, who say Biden encouraged more migration.

The 21-point plan aims to create a “fair, orderly and humane immigration system” but notes that “won’t be achieved overnight.” Details of the plan have been previously foreshadowed by the administration in its annual budget request to Congress and other announcements.

The administration aims to speed up processing of asylum claims at the southern border by authorizing asylum officers to rule on cases, according to the plan, bypassing the back-logged federal immigration courts. A draft rule to make that change has been under review at the White House budget office since early July.

The administration also said it would use a process known as expedited removal to resolve the cases of some families caught at the U.S.-Mexico border more rapidly, potentially deporting them. However, the document provided few details about the new policy.

Two sources familiar with the move said the fast-track deportations would apply only to families that do not claim a fear of persecution in their home country.

Several of the proposals in the blueprint will likely be scrutinized by lawmakers when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies on the administration funding requests at a Senate committee on Tuesday.

Among the budget requests, the Biden administration is seeking funding that would allow some migrant families and other vulnerable individuals to receive legal representation as their immigration cases move through the U.S. court system.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Dan Grebler)

U.S. Supreme Court hands victory to immigrants facing deportation

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday offered new hope to thousands of long-term immigrants seeking to avoid deportation in a ruling that faulted the federal government for improperly notifying a man who came to the United States illegally from Guatemala to appear for a removal hearing.

The justices, in a 6-3 decision that divided the high court’s conservative bloc, overturned a lower court’s decision that had prevented Agusto Niz-Chavez from pursuing his request to cancel the attempted expulsion based on the length of time he had lived in the United States. He lives in Michigan with his family after entering the United States illegally in 2005.

The justices decided that federal immigration law requires authorities to include all relevant details for a notice to appear for a hearing in one document rather than sending the information across multiple documents. While a technical issue, the ruling could affect hundreds of thousands of immigration cases.

“In this case, the law’s terms ensure that, when the federal government seeks a procedural advantage against an individual, it will at least supply him with a single and reasonably comprehensive statement of the nature of the proceedings against him,” conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the ruling.

Gorsuch was joined by the court’s three liberal justices as well as conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett.

In a dissent, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, said the ruling was “perplexing as a matter of statutory interpretation and common sense.”

The ruling upends years of practice by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in the short term will slow down the number of people placed in immigration proceedings, said Cornell University immigration law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr.

For many, Yale-Loehr added, “it does give them a second chance to try to prove that they qualify for cancellation of removal and other forms of relief.”

Under federal law, immigrants who are not lawful permanent residents may apply to have their deportation canceled if they have been in the United States for at least 10 years. The time counted to reach that threshold ends when the government initiates immigration proceedings with a notice to appear, a limit known as the “stop-time” rule.

In 2013, eight years after he entered the country, police stopped Niz-Chavez for a broken tail light on his vehicle. The federal government followed up with a notice to appear for a deportation hearing.

After the Supreme Court in 2018 found in another case that notices to appear that omitted the time and date of the hearing were deficient, Niz-Chavez cited his faulty notice to argue that the stop-time rule had not been triggered in his case.

The Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him in 2019, saying that the relevant information can be sent in more than one document. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Defying court order, Malaysia deports more than 1,000 Myanmar nationals

By A. Ananthalakshmi and Rozanna Latiff

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) – Malaysia sent more than 1,000 Myanmar nationals back to their strife-torn homeland on Tuesday despite a court order to halt the deportation, a move rights groups said could endanger the deportees’ lives.

The 1,086 Myanmar citizens were sent back on three navy ships sent by Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, sparking weeks of protests from pro-democracy activists. Malaysia had initially said it would deport 1,200.

Malaysia vowed not to deport Rohingya Muslims or refugees registered with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

But the agency has said at least six people registered with it were among the deportees. Refugee groups also say asylum seekers from the minority Chin, Kachin and non-Rohingya communities fleeing conflict and persecution at home are among those being deported.

Malaysia’s Immigration Department director-general said the repatriated Myanmar citizens did not include Rohingya refugees or asylum-seekers.

“All of those returned had agreed to be sent back voluntarily without being forced by any party,” Khairul Dzaimee Daud said in a statement.

He did not respond to queries on why the repatriation was carried out despite the court-ordered halt.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court had granted a stay until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, when it was scheduled to hear an application by rights groups for a judicial review to suspend the deportation.

Just before the ruling, the migrants were bussed in from across the country to the naval base at Lumut in western Malaysia where the Myanmar ships were docked.

Myanmar’s military-backed news outlet Myawaddy reported that the ships were bringing back Myanmar nationals who were not granted permission to come back under the former ruling civilian government.

An immigration official quoted by the outlet said: “We scrutinized that all of them are the citizens of our country, not Bengali,” using a derogatory term for Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority, that implies they are foreigners.

‘INHUMANE AND DEVASTATING’

Those deported had been detained for immigration offences. Malaysia does not formally recognize refugees, treating them as undocumented migrants.

Amnesty International, one of the groups which requested the judicial review, called the decision to deport without a proper assessment of the returnees “inhumane and devastating”.

“Using indirect means to push people back to face grave human rights violations is essentially constructive refoulement,” Katrina Maliamauv, Amnesty Malaysia director, said in a statement.

“There are still huge, deeply concerning question marks over the status of those sent back today.”

The rights groups in their court filing had said among the deportees were three people registered with the UNHCR and 17 minors who have at least one parent in Malaysia.

Concerns over deportation of unregistered asylum-seekers have persisted, as UNHCR has not been allowed to interview detainees for more than a year to verify their status. The Southeast Asian nation is home to more than 154,000 asylum-seekers from Myanmar.

The UNHCR had not been allowed access to those deported on Tuesday.

The United States and other Western missions have been trying to dissuade Malaysia from proceeding with the deportation and urged the government to allow UNHCR to interview the detainees. They also say Malaysia is legitimizing the Myanmar military government by cooperating with the junta.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Sipalan in Kuala Lumpur and Lim Huey Teng in Lumut; Editing by Ed Davies, Simon Cameron-Moore, Jacqueline Wong, William Maclean and Philippa Fletcher)

Exclusive: Canada deporting thousands even as pandemic rages

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada deported thousands of people even as COVID-19 raged last year, data seen by Reuters shows, and lawyers say deportations are ramping up, putting people needlessly at risk in the midst of a global health emergency.

Like many other countries, Canada is struggling to stop a second wave from spiraling out of control, and its political leaders are begging residents to stay home to prevent the spread.

Lawyers and human rights advocates are decrying Canada’s November decision to resume deportations. Until now, the extent of the country’s pandemic deportations was not known, but recent interviews with immigration lawyers and scrutiny of government numbers has shed light on the situation.

Canada counted 12,122 people as removed in 2020 – 875 more than the previous year and the highest number since at least 2015, according to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) data seen by Reuters. The government says this was necessary and done safely.

The CBSA says the high number last year is because it includes people who decided to leave on their own, termed “administrative removals.” In 2019 there were 1,657 administrative removals, compared with 8,215 last year.

Even subtracting those numbers, that leaves thousands of people deported as the pandemic raged and governments cautioned against travel of any kind for safety reasons.

Even as Canada continues to deport non-citizens during a health crisis, U.S. President Joe Biden paused deportations for 100 days within hours of being sworn in on Wednesday.

Canada officially imposed a moratorium on deportations in March that it lifted at the end of November.

“As much as a human rights concern it’s a common sense concern,” said Bill Frelick, director of Human Rights Watch’s Refugee Rights Program.

Countries’ deportation practices have varied over the course of the pandemic. Several, including the United Kingdom, suspended deportations before resuming them. Others, like Ireland, have kept suspensions in place.

The CBSA said it has been prioritizing deportations for reasons of “serious admissibility,” including criminality.

The vast majority of people deported in 2020 were for reasons of “noncompliance.” Even taking into account administrative removals, more than 1,000 people were deported during the suspension, the data shows.

‘IT’S UNBELIEVABLE’

Public health experts have warned that travel of any kind can spread COVID-19 from one place to another, a risk that grows with the advent of more highly transmissible COVID variants.

Many of the deportation trips involve transfers at multiple airports and flights during which people are placed in enclosed space in close quarters with other people for hours at a time, a situation ripe for transmission.

Since August Canada has been conducting deportations with CBSA escorts, so Canadians are also making thousands of these round-trip flights for deportation purposes.

Organizations including the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers spoke out against Canada’s decision to resume deportations.

“As everybody is putting in place more restrictions in an effort to flatten the curve … CBSA made a shocking decision to simply go back to business as usual,” said Maureen Silcoff, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

“Canada has taken the position that nonessential travel is barred yet people are now being removed and there’s no indication that those removals are essential.”

The CBSA said in a statement it lifted the moratorium on deportations because foreign government offices and borders had reopened, airlines restarted their routes and public-health protocols “have contributed to a high degree of safety for persons being removed by air.”

“Canada continues to uphold both its human rights and public safety obligations in relation to the removal of inadmissible foreign nationals,” the statement said. “The removal process includes many checks and balances to ensure that the removal is conducted in a fair and just manner.”

But these deportations are endangering not only the people being deported but the government officers tasked with accompanying them to their destination, lawyers say.

Immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman’s Toronto office went from getting no removal cases to getting three or four in the space of a week, he said. He is now fighting for a failed refugee claimant with two young Canadian children who faces deportation to Egypt Monday.

“They’re ramping it up as if there was no pandemic,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Denny Thomas and Matthew Lewis)

U.S. judge blocks expulsions of unaccompanied children under Trump’s pandemic-related border rules

By Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. district court judge on Wednesday blocked expulsions of unaccompanied children caught crossing into the United States, a setback for the outgoing Trump administration, which said the policy was aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in the District of Columbia ruled that the minors were likely to suffer irreparable harm because they could be subject to sexual abuse and other violence, as well as face the possibility of torture and death if summarily returned to their home countries.

President Donald Trump has made immigration curbs a central part of his four-year term in office and enacted a series of sweeping immigration restrictions during the pandemic.

President-elect Joe Biden, has vowed to reverse many of the Republican president’s hardline immigration policies.

Biden has not yet commented on how he would handle the emergency border rules that allow for rapid deportations. A Biden campaign official told Reuters that he would defer to health experts on such restrictions.

A U.S. Border Patrol official said in a September court filing that 8,800 unaccompanied minors were expelled under the border rules between their enactment on March 20 and Sept. 9.

Overall, the United States has expelled roughly 197,000 migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border from March through the end of September, though those figures include migrants who may have crossed multiple times.

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represented plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the policy was a “pretext” for Trump to close the border to children and asylum seekers from Central America.

The U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Macfie)

Die in detention or at home? U.S. pandemic forces cruel choice on asylum seekers

By Laura Gottesdiener

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – In early June, asylum seeker Jose Munoz decided it was time to flee for his life – by getting deported from a Texas immigration detention center where coronavirus was sweeping through the population and going home to El Salvador.

As the number of COVID-19 cases rose in the Houston Contract Detention Facility – it has had at least 105, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data – Munoz said he had few ways to protect himself from exposure except for a cloth face mask. On June 1, there were 375 detainees housed in the facility, according ICE data.

Although at 19 he would not normally be at risk from complications from the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, Munoz worried his high cholesterol, a comorbidity found in some patients who died, made him vulnerable.

Months earlier, the Salvadoran student had sought asylum in the United States after he says he was attacked for refusing to transport drugs for a gang, which he declined to name, citing concerns for his safety. His lawyer and an affidavit signed by Munoz and reviewed by Reuters were consistent with his account. But by June, he feared his life was hanging in the balance, knowing that the next ruling in his asylum case would be months away if he chose to keep fighting.

“I felt like it was more dangerous than back in my country,” he said in a telephone interview last month from El Salvador.

Reuters spoke to more than 30 lawyers, immigration advocates, detainees and their family members who said the risks of contracting COVID-19 inside detention facilities have driven people to seek deportation.

Fifteen immigration lawyers and advocates, who together say they have received hundreds of requests from detainees seeking to leave facilities in eight U.S. states for health reasons, told Reuters they are seeing increases in the number of people considering abandoning their cases. Reuters found 12 cases of detainees who stopped fighting their cases and instead agreed to deportation or voluntary departure due to the pandemic.

An ICE spokeswoman told Reuters the agency respects migrants’ rights to make decisions regarding whether to pursue or forego their cases.

Reuters couldn’t determine if the total number of people voluntarily seeking deportation is on the rise.

Samuel Cole, a U.S. immigration judge who spoke to Reuters as communications director for the National Association of Immigration Judges, said he saw an increase in migrants seeking to leave detention in the early months of the pandemic – even if it meant abandoning their cases.

“There were definitely respondents who expressed fear of getting sick in detention and wanted to get out as fear of COVID was sweeping the country,” Cole said.

ACCESS TO MASKS, HAND SANITIZER

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dialed back arrests and released some immigrants on parole, but has come under fire for shifting detainees between facilities during the pandemic, which ICE has said is part of its effort to stem the spread of the virus and to promote social distancing. The agency has also been criticized for deporting more than a hundred infected people to their home countries.

ICE data shows 2,742 people in ICE detention centers, and 45 ICE employees, have tested positive for COVID-19. Two migrants with the disease have died. Thousands of others who could be more vulnerable if they get infected remain in custody, according to ICE data included in a June 24 court filing as part of a class-action lawsuit over medical care in ICE facilities.

The ICE spokeswoman said the agency weighs a person’s criminal record, potential threat to public safety and flight risk, as well as any national security concerns, when evaluating whether to grant discretionary release.

One migrant interviewed for this story tested positive for COVID-19 while in detention at the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico, according to ICE. A second migrant tested positive on May 14, according to El Rio Health in Arizona, the same day U.S. documents show he was released from ICE custody.

Many of the 14 current and former detainees interviewed by Reuters said they did not have access to hygiene products such as hand soap and disinfectants. Six detainees said they were exposed to other detainees who had fevers, persistent coughs, or body aches, which can be symptoms of the virus.

One current detainee said those who voiced health concerns were punished with solitary confinement, a claim echoed by lawyers and advocates working in detention centers in four different states.

“ICE fully respects the rights of detainees to voice their concerns without interference and does not retaliate in any way,” the ICE spokeswoman told Reuters.

A second ICE spokeswoman said the agency provided soap in washing areas and sanitizer throughout the centers “whenever possible,” adding that ICE had taken steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and to “safeguard the health and well-being of detainees, staff, and others at our detention facilities.”

Several lawyers told Reuters they see the agency’s handling of the pandemic inside its detention centers as part of the U.S. government’s broader effort to limit immigration.

“I’ve come to think it’s a strategy to get people to say: ‘I’m scared to death, I can’t stand it anymore, just deport me,'” said Margo Cowan, supervisor at the Pima County Public Defender’s Office in Arizona, who has practiced immigration law for more than three decades.

The first ICE spokeswoman told Reuters the agency fully respects immigrants’ rights to due process.

“Any alien who has a claim to relief, protection under the law, or basis to remain in the United States is allowed to remain in the U.S. legally,” she said.

A DHS internal watchdog report based on a survey of 188 ICE detention centers shows that about 90% of ICE detention centers said they had enough masks and liquid soap for detainees. More than a third reported not having enough hand sanitizer for detainees. Twelve percent of facilities said they did not have the capacity to isolate or quarantine a detainee who tested positive for COVID-19. A number of facilities said social distancing was a challenge given space restrictions.

‘JUST SIGN’

Patricia Jimenez, a Mexican asylum seeker who said she fled to the United States after being kidnapped by unknown gunmen, decided to drop her case and seek deportation as the coronavirus swept through the Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Arizona, which has reported 222 COVID-19 cases, the second-largest outbreak in an ICE detention center. Her account was confirmed by her lawyer and her aunt.

“I’m really scared that I might get sick and never see my son again,” she told Reuters in a call in late June from the center, where she’s awaiting deportation.

Jimenez said she fears returning to Mexico.

“But at this moment, I’m more afraid of being here,” she said, citing the death of a guard who she says she had contact within the facility’s kitchen, where she had worked. CoreCivic, the company that operates the center, said the death was from “potential COVID-19-related issues.”

In a statement, a representative of CoreCivic said the company is committed to the safety of its detainees and employees, adding that Jimenez’s claims “do not reflect the affirmative, proactive measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 our facility has been taking for months.”

Lucas Castro, a Mexican asylum seeker with diabetes, which makes people vulnerable to complications from the virus, said he also requested deportation after fearing for his life more in detention than back home, where he said he was brutally beaten by a drug gang last year. His account was supported by his wife and the transcript of his “credible-fear” interview, which is part of the asylum process and was reviewed by Reuters.

Eight migrants, including Castro, told Reuters that officials tried to use detainees’ health concerns to push them into agreeing to their deportation.

At Arizona’s La Palma Correctional Facility, where Castro was held, he said detainees frequently requested information about the pandemic and whether they could be granted humanitarian parole or other forms of release.

“Instead, a deportation officer always arrived and told us that if we were genuinely afraid then we should just sign for our deportation,” Castro said. Two other former detainees in the same facility echoed Castro’s account. Castro said his fear of the virus prompted him to ask a judge for deportation, which U.S. records show was ordered in late May.

The second ICE spokeswoman said the agency does not have a policy of encouraging detainees who raise health concerns related to COVID-19 to sign for deportation. She added that La Palma Correctional Facility does not have a record of a complaint lodged by Castro regarding the alleged staff comments.

Pandemic-related logjams within the immigration system have also delayed the repatriation of some migrants.

Guatemalan asylum-seeker Timoteo Vicente said he chose not to appeal a negative ruling in his case in March in part because he deemed the medical care inside the Tacoma ICE Processing Center in Washington State inadequate, leading him to worry about its ability to respond to the pandemic.

In a statement, a representative for GEO Group, the company that contracts with ICE to run the facility, said: “We take our responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all those in our care and our employees with the utmost seriousness.”

Three months later, Vicente is still stranded in detention, awaiting his deportation.

“I’m in an abyss,” Vicente told Reuters in a call from the detention center. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener; Additional reporting by Reade Levinson; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Paul Simao)

Exclusive: Brazil facilitates deportation of its nationals after U.S. pressure

FILE PHOTO: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands during a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Lisandra Paraguassu

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil is making it easier for the United States to deport undocumented Brazilians by asking U.S. airlines to board deportees even when they have no valid passports, following pressure from the Trump administration, three Brazilian government sources said.

The Federal Police sent airlines a memo in June allowing them to board Brazilian deportees with just a certificate of nationality issued by a consulate if they lack a valid passport, previously needed to travel to Brazil, the sources said.

The move by right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s government aims to facilitate repatriation of deportees by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and efforts by the Trump administration to speed the removal of undocumented immigrants.

The officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said Brazil has come under increasing pressure from the Trump administration to facilitate deportations of its detained nationals, to the point of risking sanctions.

They did not detail what kind of sanctions.

“When Donald Trump became U.S. president, illegal immigration became a central political issue. Pressure increased a lot and Brazil was even threatened with sanctions,” one of the sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Brazil was labeled as “at risk of non-compliance” with the repatriation of deportees in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report in March on the barriers ICE faces to timely removal of detained immigrants.

Trump has been cracking down on recalcitrant countries that do not accept immigrants ordered deported, under an executive order issued immediately after he took office.

The deportation of undocumented Brazilians has risen from 1,413 in fiscal year 2017 to 1,691 in fiscal 2018, with Brazilians the sixth-largest group of nationals being removed from the United States, according to ICE data.

This fiscal year there have been 1,117 removals of Brazilians through June 10, ICE said. The U.S. fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that certificates of nationality are issued by its consulates in the United States when detained deportees have exhausted their appeals process and have no passport. Brazilian passports are issued only to nationals who apply for them.

Many countries have arrangements with the U.S. government and foreign countries that allow for a document – other than a passport – issued by an embassy or consulate to serve as an authorization to travel.

Delta Airlines and American Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.

As of December, there were 334 Brazilians in ICE detention awaiting trial or deportation, the ministry said.

Since he took office in January, Bolsonaro has established close ties with Trump and the two are looking to negotiate a trade agreement.

Bolsonaro has made disparaging statements about immigrants. In March, speaking on Fox News during a visit to Washington, he praised Trump’s plan for a wall on the Mexican border, adding that “most immigrants do not have good intentions.”

His son Eduardo Bolsonaro, whom he has nominated to be Brazil’s ambassador in Washington, told reporters during that visit that illegal Brazilian immigrants were “a problem for Brazil, an embarrassment to us.”

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassú; additional reporting and writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Dan Grebler)