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[5 articles count as 1 reading for Papers & Notes]US government deporting Central American migrants to their deaths Sibylla Brodzinsky in San Pedro Sula and Ed Pilkington in New York October 2015 The US government is deporting undocumented immigrants back to Central America to face the imminent threat of violence, with several individuals being murdered just days or months after their return, a Guardian investigation has found.Every year thousands of Hondurans come to the US in search of a better life and safety – yet for a growing number of young men, the return home makes them prime targets for gang retaliations as murder rate surges The Guardian has confirmed three separate cases of Honduran men who have been gunned down shortly after being deported by the US government. Each was murdered in their hometowns, soon after their return – one just a few days after he was expelled from the US. Immigration experts believe that the Guardian’s findings represent just the tip of the iceberg. A forthcoming academic study based on local newspaper reports has identified as many as 83 US deportees who have been murdered on their return to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras since January 2014.Human rights groups warn that deterrent measures taken by the Obama administration after last year’s “surge” in arrivals at the border of unaccompanied children from Central America have triggered a series of powerful unintended consequences across the region...Side effects of the crackdown can also be seen in Mexico, where authorities have also stepped up security across the across the south of the country. This has caused migrants to make lengthy detours, making journeys to ever more remote and perilous routes where they face a heightened risk of robbery, rape, abduction and death.Human rights experts warn that in its haste to expel or deter undocumented immigrants, the US government is scrimping on its obligation to provide asylum to those genuinely in peril in violation of international law.The collateral damage of America’s increasingly unforgiving deportation process is that people are being returned to extremely dangerous situations in Central America, which has some of the highest murder rates in the world. … [Dunn cut rest for space reasons]Liliana Cruz Mendez, Falls Church mother of 2, deported to El SalvadorBy Maria Sacchetti 20, 2017 Federal immigration officials have deported a mother of two from Falls Church back to her native El Salvador despite eleventh-hour efforts by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and others to help her stay in the United States.Liliana Cruz Mendez was deported Wednesday, according to CASA, the nonprofit group that represented her after she was detained in May at a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE confirmed the deportation.After she was taken into custody, McAuliffe (D) pardoned Cruz Mendez’s 2014 conviction for a minor driving offense in hopes that it would spare her from having to leave the country.The governor said she did not pose a public-safety threat. But federal immigration officials said she would be deported, noting that she had been in the United States illegally since 2006.Cruz Mendez’s husband, Rene Bermudez, said the family was shattered by the deportation. He sobbed as he recounted how their children, aged 10 and 4, wept when they heard Cruz Mendez was gone.Liliana Cruz Mendez’s husband Rene Bermudez, second from left, at a protest after she was arrested in May. Bermudez is holding his 4-year-old daughter Danyca and standing behind his son Steven , who is holding a placard that says in Spanish, “I am a very sad boy.” (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images) “How can they take away their mother?” he said. Bermudez said he cannot join his wife in El Salvador because he is in the process of obtaining a green card and must stay in the United States. He said he and his wife have been together for 15 years and have always paid taxes and gone to church. He and his son and daughter last saw Cruz Mendez through a window at the immigration detention center. “People don’t understand because they haven’t lived it. But believe me,” he said, his voice faltering, “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” Cases such as Cruz Mendez’s have infuriated advocates for immigrants and stymied Democrats in Congress who want ICE to focus on deporting criminals and others who pose a specific threat.Some undocumented immigrants without serious criminal records also were deported during President Barack Obama’s administration. But such cases seem to be more of a priority under President Trump, whose top immigration officials have said they won’t hesitate to oust anyone here illegally, including parents — like Cruz Mendez — whose children were born here and are U.S. citizens…Trump has vowed to increase deportations. In his first 100 days in office, ICE agents arrested 41,318 immigrants, an increase of 37.6?percent over the same period last year. Most are criminals, according to federal officials, but the biggest increase in arrests was among immigrants with no criminal records. Those arrests more than doubled to nearly 11,000. He went to ICE to tell agents he had gotten into college. Now he and his brother have been deported.By Rachel Chason 2, 2017Two brothers from Gaithersburg were deported to their native El Salvador on Wednesday in what their attorney says was the fastest deportation process he has ever seen.Lizandro Claros Saravia, 19, is a standout soccer player who had secured a scholarship to play college soccer in North Carolina. His brother, Diego, 22, took extra classes to graduate from Quince Orchard High School on time and “has a heart of gold,” a former teacher said.They entered the country illegally in 2009, however, and although they initially won reprieves from deportation, their efforts to renew those stays were repeatedly denied.The brothers have no criminal records and would not have been a priority for deportation by the Obama administration, said Matthew Bourke, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.President Trump’s administration, in contrast, has made clear that any undocumented immigrant is subject to being expelled from this country….On Friday, the brothers were detained by ICE agents in Baltimore after a regular check-in. Lizandro Claros Saravia told the agents that he was planning to attend college on a scholarship, said Nick Katz, senior manager of legal services at CASA de Maryland, who is representing the pair.“The ICE agents told me they were deporting the kids because Lizandro got into college, and that showed they intended to stay in the U.S.,” Katz said.Bourke said that is not how ICE conducts enforcement actions.“They were issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2012. That’s why they were removed,” Bourke said. The brothers were granted a stay of removal in 2013, but subsequent applications for stays were denied.Bourke said decisions about individual cases — including the timing of deportations — are made “on a case-by-case basis, meaning they can be done differently.” Many Trump supporters have applauded the increase in deportations, saying no one in this country illegally has the right to stay. In El Salvador, the brothers were to be met by two aunts and three grandparents. But their family here — including their parents; their older brother, Jonathan; and their sister, Fatima — are worried about the violence they could face there.El Salvador was named the hemisphere’s murder capital in 2016. “They have separated my family,” Lizandro and Diego’s mother, Lucia Saravia, said at a news conference outside CASA’s headquarters Wednesday afternoon. …“We’re all disgusted by the government,” said Matt Di Rosa, Lizandro’s friend and teammate, who graduated from Wilson High School in Northwest Washington this spring and will play for the University of Maryland in the fall. “We’re going to keep pushing and try to help Lizandro even if he is not here.”…Sick and Afraid, Some Immigrants Forgo Medical CareBy JAN HOFFMAN 26, 2017 DURHAM, N.C. — Dr. Luke Smith drove slowly through the unlit streets of a neighborhood filled with immigrants, searching for an address among small houses with windows ribbed by iron bars. Pharmacy bags lay at his feet.His mission: to deliver medication to patients too frightened to pick up their prescriptions.On this evening, Dr. Smith, a psychiatrist, was looking for the family of a 12-year-old boy with attention deficit disorder. Like most people who have sneaked into the United States illegally, the boy’s parents, from Puebla, Mexico, do not have drivers’ licenses.Now, when they drive, being stopped at one of the frequent traffic checkpoints here can have consequences far more costly than a fine. Shaken by the Trump administration’s broad deportation orders, they and many others like them are retreating into the shadows, forgoing screenings, medications and other essential medical care.Several times a week, Dr. Smith picks up prescriptions at pharmacies, then meets patients at their homes to hand them the medications they require. “I can’t have my patients taking risks to get medicine I prescribe for them,” he said.Across the country, from Venice, Calif., to Brooklyn, clinics that serve an immigrant population report a downturn in appointments since the administration’s crackdown. In a recent national poll of providers by Migrant Clinicians Network, which is based in Austin, Tex., two-thirds of respondents said they had seen a reluctance among patients to seek health care. Some parents have been withdrawing children from federal nutrition programs to avoid scrutiny. In Baltimore, health care workers who have for years visited Latino neighborhoods to test people for sexually transmitted infections now wait in vans outside 7-Elevens and Home Depots.“It’s been like a ghost town,” said Dr. Kathleen R. Page, co-director of Centro SOL, a health center for Latinos at Johns Hopkins.Experts say the toll for avoiding the health care system is far-reaching. Poorer Latinos, in particular, suffer from high rates of obesity, diabetes, liver disease and high blood pressure. “Patients who are already sick will have a much harder time getting better,” Dr. Page said. Those who don’t get care for infectious diseases, she said, “are much more likely to transmit infections to others.”Yet as medical costs present a burden for millions of Americans, many people question why citizens who can scarcely afford their own health care should support through taxes the care of those living here illegally.One provider surveyed in the Migrant Clinicians Network poll wrote: “There has been a fair amount of animosity towards me for helping the workers. Locals think that the workers are receiving grand benefits.”Here in central North Carolina, where immigrants work in tobacco fields and chicken-processing factories, and wash dishes and clean bathrooms in booming downtown restaurants and hotels, some health care providers are going to unusual lengths for patients.Dr. Smith walked onto a dark porch and knocked on a door. “Está Jorgito?” he called out.Eyes peered out through slats of a lowered blind. Jorgito, a taco truck owner, flung open the door and rushed forward, beaming.In the crowded front room, Jorgito, who, like other illegal immigrants interviewed for this article, asked that his last name be withheld to prevent officials from identifying him and his family, introduced the doctor to his friends, relatives and pastor. Only after the family had urged him to sample some homemade, thick Central American-style tortillas, did Dr. Smith discreetly hand Jorgito the medication for his son, a bashful sixth grader lolling on a couch.This fall, when Dr. Smith met the boy’s parents at school and told them that medication could help their distracted, failing son, the father was standoffish and suspicious. But since then, the boy’s diligence, grades and self-esteem have improved — and so has Jorgito’s confidence in Dr. Smith.Despite the family’s entreaties to stay, Dr. Smith begged off. It was nearly 10 o’clock. Another family was waiting for medicine.Shattered TrustExcept for absolute necessities, Rodolfo, an itinerant construction worker who entered the United States illegally from Puebla six years ago, does not leave his house these days.But for a month now, his 8-year-old daughter, Leslie, has been doubling over in pain after meals. So, uneasily, on buses and on foot, Rodolfo took her to the community health clinic in Carrboro, a liberal, well-heeled town just west of Chapel Hill.In the exam room, the child shrank into herself, stiff and uncomfortable. Lisanna Gonzalez, a family nurse practitioner, could find no physical cause for her discomfort.Eventually Leslie admitted she was terrified that she would come home from school one day and find her parents gone. Kids were always talking about it, she said, even teasing her. Her brother, 13, kept showing her social media updates about raids.Fear is making people sick, said Dr. Evan Ashkin, a professor of family medicine at the University of North Carolina who directs a residency program for doctors who work with poor patients. Providers, he explained, have seen an increase in common physical manifestations of depression and anxiety: stomach aches, blurred vision, dizziness, insomnia, headaches, spikes in blood pressure, shortness of breath.“I understand why you’re worried, and I hope nothing like that will happen,” Ms. Gonzalez told Leslie and her father, in Spanish. “We can’t take away the stress, but we can give you some ways to manage the anxiety.”She handed Rodolfo a checklist, assembled by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, on how to prepare for a possible deportation: Decide who can care for your children. Write down their medications and important phone numbers. Tell your family whom to call if you are detained.Providers at these federally qualified health centers, which receive some government funds to serve the uninsured and underinsured, do not ask patients about their citizenship status. Instead, the patients, who are required to pay a modest clinic fee, must show proof of residence and income.Dr. Ashkin has built up relationships with many uninsured immigrants over the years. But recently a longtime patient, pregnant but having first-trimester bleeding, refused to take his advice to go for an ultrasound at the university medical center at Chapel Hill….She was fearful that immigration agents might be waiting. Fortunately, the bleeding stopped.Referring to the dread among his patients, Dr. Ashkin said, “Their trust in us is breaking down.”This is not the first time that fear has kept undocumented patients away. Researchers found that in the wake of expanded immigration enforcement in Arizona in 2010, illegal immigrants used health services less frequently, according to a study published in The American Journal of Public Health. …The effects of deferred health care will be felt in many ways, experts said. Hospitals and emergency departments, exponentially more expensive than primary care, will treat more sick patients, said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. School systems will feel the impact of more students with a range of health-related challenges.Researchers have also looked at the question of federal benefits for illegal immigrants.Many are paid off the books in cash. But certainly not all. Between 2000 and 2011, immigrants not authorized to work here contributed between $2.2 billion and $3.8 billion a year more to Medicare than they withdrew, according to a 2016 study.José, 42, works year-round for a tobacco grower; his wife, Irma, 44, picks tobacco and also works at a local steakhouse, wiping down tables and mopping floors. They do not have Social Security numbers because they are here illegally.“But we pay taxes!” Irma declared, responding to the argument that taxpayer-funded clinics should serve only legal citizens.Their paycheck deductions are taken with individual tax identification numbers. But, she noted, neither is eligible for the programs those taxes fund, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.Post-Traumatic Stress Flares UpSiler City is a town of about 8,000 an hour southwest of Durham. The road there runs past tobacco fields, a derelict former chicken-processing factory and trailer parks into a downtown lined with storefront Pentecostal churches. A sign in an art gallery window warns: No Weapons Allowed.In a ranch house with chipped gray-blue siding is a branch of El Futuro, Dr. Smith’s mental health clinic. Post-traumatic stress disorder is prevalent among patients, said Karla Siu, the clinical program director.A 9-year-old recalls sleeping in the desert, awakening to a snake. Women quake from memories of being raped on the road. Men seethe, mortified, less from having been stiffed of a day’s wages than from being too afraid to file a complaint.As stories of raids churn through rumor mills, therapy sessions have become especially tense. Clinicians report that some patients conclude sessions with ever more elaborate farewells…. El Futuro has waiting lists of people who want help. But in a survey of patients, the clinic found that some people are afraid to come in. Elizabeth, 27 and here illegally, is among them.With great reluctance she showed up at the clinic for an interview with a reporter, arriving late, uneasy. Apologizing, she said she leaves her apartment these days only to go to the grocery store and to her job as a hotel maid.She has no one who will care for her two young children if she is deported, she explained haltingly, tears welling up….A Path to America, Marked by More and More BodiesBy MANNY FERNANDEZ 4, 2017 Case 0438 A man illegally crossed the border into South Texas, died on the journey and was never identified. His remains were buried in a milk crate, his skull stained red from its contact with a bandanna. More than 200 other migrants just like him died, their names unknown. Their bodies are part of a border-crossers’ morgue at a university lab. They make up a fraction of the death toll along the border in Texas. In just one county, the bodies and remains of more than 500 migrants have been found since 2009.Over 16 years, the Border Patrol documented 6,023 deaths in the four states bordering Mexico, more than from the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina combined. … [Dunn cut rest] ................
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