The Trump administration’s policies of continued deportations and mass incarceration of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers during the COVID-19 crisis are spreading the disease within the United States and across Central and South America and the Caribbean, but this hasn’t stopped right-wing media from cheerleading these extreme policies. 

In April, mainstream media outlets reported on the risk deportation policies posed in terms of spreading the virus around the world. Since then, this risk has been realized -- especially in Guatemala. According to The New Yorker, “Guatemala’s health minister, Hugo Monroy, announced that between fifty and seventy-five per cent of deportees who had just arrived in the country were found to be infected.” The New Yorker also reported that “other countries in the region have been forced to deal with deportees infected with the virus, including Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and Haiti, many of which have fragile health-care systems, scant hospital space, and a dearth of ventilators.”

On May 12, Vox reported that deportees have tested positive for COVID-19 across Central America and the Caribbean: There have been over 200 such cases in Guatemala, at least two cases in Mexico, and at least three in Haiti. 

Beyond deportations, mass incarceration has spread COVID-19 through detention facilities operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement around the country, threatening the lives of all who work and reside in these squalid spaces. Among ICE detainees, 1,073 have tested positive for the virus, but only 8% of this population has been tested, and about 50% of those tested were positive. Carlos Escobar-Mejia was reportedly the first ICE detainee to die from COVID-19, passing on May 6 at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. 

Multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of detainees who have been and continue to be exposed to the virus. And this crisis has spread fear among undocumented immigrants, causing many to avoid testing so they can avoid the attention of authorities and risking further spread.

The Trump administration’s response to the spread of COVID-19 among detainees and deportees has been an exercise in feigned concern followed by unceasing enforcement.

ICE surveillance and arrest campaigns ramped up in February under the name “Operation Palladium,” and they continued until a week after the U.S. government declared the coronavirus crisis a national emergency. In March, ICE announced that it would “temporarily adjust its enforcement posture” to focus on arrests of “individuals subject to mandatory detention based on criminal grounds.” But Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Ken Cuccinelli immediately walked this back, saying ICE will “conduct enforcement operations that protect our communities and uphold our laws.” At one point in April, the Trump administration claimed to have suspended the deportation of Guatemalans pending review of these concerns. But in early May, the deportations resumed, and The Associated Press recently reported on 10 people on a May 13 deportation flight who tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Guatemala. 

Throughout this grim timeline, right-wing media have continued to urge the Trump administration to adopt a draconian approach to enforcement during the public health crisis, including mass detention and deportation, and falsely blamed community infections on so-called “illegal immigrants.” In reality, the opposite is true: The United States’ extreme immigration and deportation policies pose a public health threat to communities across the country and the broader region.

Here is how Fox News personalities are cheerleading deportation and detention amid a global pandemic:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson lamented on May 12 that the House coronavirus relief package would suspend deportations for essential workers and characterized the proposed provision as “blanket amnesty for virtually every illegal alien who has already taken an American job.”
 

Fox News contributor Tom Homan complained about a judge’s order to release ICE detainees at a California facility and argued against social distancing in detention facilities during the April 27 episode of Fox & Friends First. Homan also fearmongered by reading from a list of crimes committed by detainees who had been released because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has since overruled the judge and halted the order.

Homan wrote a May 1 op-ed on FoxNews.com titled “Liberal judges use coronavirus as excuse to free detained illegal immigrants, endangering public.” Homan attacked judges who have ordered detainees to be released and claimed that inmates were actually safer in detention than if they were not incarcerated. He also claimed there are no cases of COVID-19 in a detention facility in Adelanto, California, when that same day it was reported that only six detainees out of nearly 1,300 had even been tested. Two weeks later, an ICE employee at the facility tested positive for the virus. From the May 1 op-ed:

On the May 13 episode of The Sean Hannity Show, disgraced former Fox host Bill O’Reilly attacked Democrats for proposing to temporarily suspend deportations, falsely claiming they’re doing so to secure their political power.

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade characterized an outbreak among dual citizens in the San Diego area as America “dealing with other countries’ issues” during a May 14 segment. Kilmeade and Homan discussed a Wall Street Journal report on a coronavirus outbreak among dual citizens and documented immigrants in Chula Vista, California. Homan fearmongered about undocumented immigrants -- who were not mentioned in the story -- bringing disease across the Southern border, saying that “it’s not new that disease comes across that border every day” and then referring to efforts in detention facilities to deal with measles.