Print GUATEMALA CITY — Marcelo Ibate waited outside the big black door eating tortillas out of a sweating plastic bag A line of camouflaged soldiers stood beyond with large weapons and face masks Ibate didn’t know which day his son Eduardo would arrive or whether he’d be carrying coronavirus with him on the deportation flight from the United States, now the epicenter of the global pandemic. but I think he is OK,” Ibate said in Spanish as he waited outside the Air Force base where returnees are processed attached to the commercial airport in Guatemala City there’s not much we can do — we can only wait and care for him After barring foreign travelers and closing its borders and businesses to try to contain the spread of coronavirus, Guatemala earlier this month became the first nation to publicly refuse deportation flights from the United States. Marcelo Ibate waits for his son’s deportation flight to arrive (Morena Perez Joachin / Los Angeles Times) It didn’t last long Department of Homeland Security that health protocols had been established Guatemalan authorities allowed flights to resume — starting with 66 Guatemalans sent from Brownsville The group included Ibate’s 19-year-old son While Guatemalan law requires the repatriation of its citizens the quick reversal underscores the tension for Latin America a region that has taken drastic measures to avoid importing coronavirus cases from the United States spokesman for Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry it would be the U.S.’ responsibility to contain it from going outside its borders.” Currently all three Northern Triangle countries are continuing to accept deportation flights Officials at the White House declined to comment on the record or confirm the total number of coronavirus cases among DHS employees directing the Times to DHS officials for the total Immigration and Customs Enforcement has confirmed two cases of COVID-19 among migrants in its custody five cases among ICE employees or personnel working in detention facilities and 19 cases among other employees DHS spokeswoman Sofia Boza-Holman said Saturday that the Trump administration is “committed to helping slow the spread of the virus.” Guatemalan officials confirmed that a 29-year-old Guatemalan man deported from Mesa on Thursday began displaying symptoms and tested positive for COVID-19 the first known case in an individual removed from the U.S former acting director of ICE in the Obama administration said there’s “serious risk of contagion” with deportation flights for both migrants and ICE officers on-board “They could easily suspend flights if they wanted to,” Sandweg said of the administration The Northern Triangle countries are among the primary places of origin for the 38,058 migrants currently in U.S. immigration detention. Of those 6,166 have exercised their right under U.S law to seek protection and have established their claim with immigration officials More than 60% of all migrants in detention have no criminal convictions many would typically have been released to family members to await court hearings Amid coronavirus, advocates have been filing lawsuits calling for such releases. Academics, health experts and even some administration officials and detainees themselves have said in interviews that the often crowded, unsanitary detention facilities are a “Petri dish” for the virus Pre-dating the pandemic, DHS’s Inspector General found 14,000 health and safety “deficiencies” at contracted detention facilities between October 2015 and June 2018. At least 10 migrants have died in ICE custody this fiscal year Facing criticism, ICE last week announced it would reduce enforcement actions. Instead, the agency has since added to the total detained population. DHS officials say they are following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and have implemented additional health checks on Border Patrol agents and ICE officers. They have also started to take the temperature of migrants before they board flights to either other detention centers or to other countries A man awaited the arrival of his son outside of the Air Force base in Guatemala City where deported migrants are processed (Morena Perez Joachin/For the Times) “The CDC’s top healthcare experts have rigorously worked with DHS to develop the best guidelines and practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 across both the northern and southern border in our immigration housing centers and [on] our repatriation flights,” said Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Caitlin B Oakley in response to requests for comment from the White House “You can have the virus without having a fever,” said Adam Isacson director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America “Otherwise we could all be going to bars right now and just having our temperature taken before we went in.” David Marin, a senior ICE official in Los Angeles, expressed concern that if countries start to refuse deportation flights, U.S. detention space would soon fill up. Now, the U.S. is using the planes deporting migrants to evacuate stranded Americans citizens from Honduras and El Salvador last week after dropping off deportees ICE said earlier it would continue returning U.S citizens from the Northern Triangle on deportation flights for “the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic,” and that the operations could expand to other countries the administration is needlessly exposing them to the virus Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist who has served as a trauma expert for lawsuits against Trump immigration policies became stuck in Honduras after arriving for work on March 15 “Wouldn’t it be ironic if the way I get sprung from here happens to be a flight on which people were deported?” she asked Last Monday, the U.S. deported 85 Guatemalans from El Paso, including 29 children. When they arrived, Guatemalan health officials found that a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old had high temperatures. The rest of the returnees, as well as 20 Guatemalan officials processing them, had to be isolated. The teenagers ultimately tested negative for COVID-19, according to the Guatemalan health ministry. Asked whether the incident had caused alarm among Guatemalan officials, Samayoa, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said it was “scary” but “turned out fine.” If the children had tested positive, he added, “there might be some eyebrows raised.” DHS officials did not respond to requests for comment on how the deported minors could arrive with fevers if they were tested before boarding. “Detainees are screened prior to boarding and will not be allowed to board if they have a fever,” said ICE spokeswoman Mary Houtmann. A week later, on Monday, three more Guatemalan children deported from the U.S. arrived with high temperatures and are currently awaiting testing, according to Guatemalan officials. Hours after Eduardo’s deportation flight landed, the black door from the airbase suddenly opened, and waves of young men emerged. They held white mesh bags with their belongings, and many hid their faces from cameras; few had face masks or gloves. They headed for buses provided by the government for transit toward their hometowns. Guatemala’s president had shuttered the country’s bus system days before. “I am here for my son,” said Rosa Bocel, whose colorful indigenous dress stood out as she and her husband searched for their 20-year-old in the crowd. “I live for my children.” Like Ibate, Bocel and her husband had traveled via an expensive private taxi from a small city near Guatemala’s famed Lake Atitlán. The tourism upon which their family of 14 relies has all but dried up due to coronavirus. “He left out of necessity,” she said of her son. “Because here there is nothing, and now, even less.” Rosa Bocel searched among those arriving for her 20-year-old son. (Morena Perez Joachin / Los Angeles Times) Ibate said that between the debt they took on to pay a coyote for Eduardo’s trip north and the damage coronavirus has wrought on Guatemala’s economy, his family is even worse off than before. “This is why people leave … Life is almost impossible,” he said. “Now, the markets are closed, the stores are closed — everything! If everyone closes their borders, how are we going to eat?” Back home in Sololá and job hunting, Ibate’s son Eduardo had one word for his detention in Laredo, Texas: “suffering.” Of some hundred migrants he said were crammed into one frigid cell — he didn’t know if any were sick — he spoke to few, concentrating only on trying to stay warm. Still, he had little hope of staying long in Guatemala. Military security guards the bus taking returnees from the United States to their towns in Guatemala. (Morena Perez Joachin / Los Angeles Times) “I want to go north again,” he said. “I don’t know how, but my family has to get by.” As coronavirus cases creep up in Guatemala, Ibate is resigned to their fate, he said. “If God has permitted this virus,” he said, “there is nowhere to go.” Times staff writer Cindy Carcamo in Los Angeles contributed to this report. California World & Nation Politics Subscribe for unlimited access Site Map EVIL killer Graham Dwyer’s days as the ‘Playboy of the Midlands Prison’ are over Jail bosses have vowed no more women will be let in to see him unless they can prove their bona fides as his “official” girlfriend The sadistic murderer of Elaine O’Hara is constantly inundated with letters from women all over the country asking to befriend him Prison sources say the fact that he was obsessed with the sexual practices of bondage sadism and masochism doesn’t seem to deter them A source said: “He gets their letters on and off all the time from various women who seem to be obsessed with him "They all seem to be lonely and are looking for him to be a pen pal “It seems like he can just click his fingers and women come running.” Dwyer, 52, has had little or no contact with his former wife, who has moved on with her life. But, since he was jailed for life in 2015 over the horrific killing of vulnerable childcare worker Elaine, Dwyer has had four to five different girlfriends visiting him at various times behind bars. since it will be years before he will ever be let back out on the streets Former architect Dwyer had listed a Co Sligo woman on the prison visiting list as his “official” girlfriend she stopped visiting him in 2020 and they reportedly broke up It is understood that the woman visited Dwyer at the Midlands Prison every week for four years She denied that she was involved with him in any way romantically and that they were just friends saying she “did not see him as a convicted killer” But now authorities have said women can no longer just rock up to the Midlands Prison to see Dwyer after writing him a few letters prove to us that they are his girlfriend over a long period of time before they will be let in it is a prison where the inmates are supposed to be punished for their crimes “What Graham Dwyer did killing that woman was shocking so he does not deserve any special treatment The rules here are the same for everyone.” Sadistic Dwyer used Elaine as his sex slave. 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