White House Halts Deportations to Congo as Ebola Outbreak Spreads

The Trump administration will temporarily halt deportations to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) amid the escalating Ebola outbreak, according to a report by Politico. However, experts argue the move does little to prevent the spread of the disease.

At least one woman is now in limbo after officials sent her to Kinshasa, the DRC's capital, and now say they cannot bring her back because of the Ebola-related travel ban, despite a court order requiring her return.

Adriana Zapata, 55, fled Colombia to the United States but was sent to Kinshasa more than a month ago, even though the DRC said it could not meet her complex medical needs. A U.S. judge ordered her return, but U.S. officials say they cannot bring her back because the travel ban took effect on Monday.

“I am really worried about losing her,” Zapata’s attorney, Lauren O’Neal, told Gothamist. “I don’t want her to die before we can get her back here.”

Immigration staff could be exposed to the virus on flights, and the virus could spread closer to the U.S. due to Trump’s immigration tactics, unnamed officials told Politico. They said the decision was at least partly driven by legal concerns — that deporting someone to a third country with an active Ebola outbreak could be used as a defense by immigrants.

“The government’s logic is that if it is not safe for people to come here from there, it is not safe to send people there,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former senior Ebola response official at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) during the 2014-2015 outbreak.

As long as the U.S. has a ban on travelers from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan, “on what basis is it safe to deport people there?” Konyndyk questioned.

It is unclear what will happen to refugees already sent to countries affected by the outbreak or nearby against their will. At least 37 people have been sent to these countries in recent months, according to Gillian Brockell, an independent journalist tracking U.S. deportations to third countries.

Brockell suspects U.S. officials are using the travel ban as an excuse not to return Zapata. Sending people in detention centers to remote African countries is a common threat, Brockell said, “so to publicly remove one of their main intimidation tactics, they only do it if it helps them in some way.”

The U.S. government has previously evacuated people from Ebola-affected areas — including patients with active Ebola cases. One of the world’s top experts in high-risk medical evacuations, former State Department official William Walters, is now a contractor for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Brockell noted.

“The Trump administration could absolutely bring Adriana Zapata back to the U.S.; telling the judge it cannot be done is simply not true,” she said.

ICE “complies with all applicable health and safety guidelines, including those outlined in the U.S. State Department travel advisory, when conducting removal operations,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said. However, DHS did not answer The Guardian’s questions about Zapata’s return or its plans for deportations to third countries during the Ebola outbreak, including whether flights to Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda would continue.

Sending immigrants against their will to other countries may violate international law, said Camille Mackler, an immigration attorney. “Essentially, the U.S. cannot send people back to where they will be persecuted, so we are exporting our immigration enforcement.”

No official figures exist, but experts estimate between 8,000 and 15,000 people have been sent to third countries.

“We have seen that people in immigration detention do not receive adequate medical care,” Mackler said. “They have no protections for them, and then no one thinks about the ripple effect that could cause.”

If the outbreak continues to expand, there is a possibility that detainees in affected areas could contract the disease – and if they are then sent to their home countries, they could carry the virus to South and Central America, where countries have less experience fighting viral hemorrhagic fevers.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it has plans to screen and monitor passengers from the region. The U.S. announced on Thursday that all passengers traveling from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan will be rerouted to Washington-Dulles International Airport for screening.

“The U.S. is applying travel measures to limit risk,” said Satish Pillai, head of the CDC’s Ebola response team.

Even passengers from places like Kinshasa, where no Ebola cases are known, will be monitored because “the outbreak in the affected region continues to expand,” Pillai said at a press conference on Friday.

“That is why the CDC has initiated entry screening procedures, part of a broader overall public health approach that begins with exit screening, airline illness reporting and post-arrival medical monitoring,” Pillai said.

Such measures make it highly unlikely that travelers — including Zapata — could bring Ebola into the U.S., said Alexandra Phelan, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“The correct and fair process that also protects public health” would be to bring Zapata to the U.S., as the judge ordered, and have her follow the same medical protocols as returning American citizens and residents at Dulles, Phelan said. That could include quarantine if there were any high-risk exposure — though that is “unlikely if she has been staying in Kinshasa, which is not a known active transmission site,” Phelan added.

“If the Trump administration is serious about fighting the spread of Ebola, the U.S. government should restore the humanitarian health funding it has cut across Africa; grant temporary protected status to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan; and halt all deportation flights to the region — including those involving Latin Americans and other third-country nationals,” said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International.