States across the Americas Must Guarantee the Health and Lives of Migrants and Refugees in the Face of the COVID-19 Emergency
In the face of the emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19, migrant people and those seeking international protection across the Americas have been severely affected by state responses of quarantine, curfew, detention, deportation, border closure, and militarization.
In the face of the emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19, migrant people and applicants for international protection across the American continent have been severely affected by state responses involving quarantine, curfew, detention, deportation, border closure, and militarization.
In recent weeks, multiple situations of risk and human rights violations affecting migrant and refugee populations have been reported, including Venezuelan migrants stranded after border closures in Colombia and Brazil; the detention of at least 80 Haitian migrants in Guatemala; the closing of the border between Mexico and the United States to asylum seekers, along with increased deportations of Mexican and Central American people; the lack of adequate sanitary conditions and the high risk of contagion in migration stations, detention centers, and quarantine centers for those already deported; violent repression by the Mexican National Guard; and the overwhelming of civil society shelter capacity, among many other cases.
Faced with these facts and the possibility that migrants and those seeking international protection may be even more affected in the coming weeks and months, the undersigned organizations make an urgent call on the states of the region to take the measures necessary to guarantee this population's rights to health, personal integrity, and life, under equal conditions and without any discrimination based on migration status or nationality.
As indicated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, under international human rights law, states are obliged to take measures to prevent avoidable threats to public health and must ensure that everyone who needs essential medical care receives it. This includes access for all people in situations of mobility to the preventive measures dictated by the World Health Organization, as well as timely diagnosis of COVID-19, health services, and necessary medical care for treatment of the virus.
In addition to this, states must halt deportations and returns, and guarantee access for all people to request international protection. As indicated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, states are obliged to guarantee access for all people to seek and receive asylum and to respect the principle of non-refoulement, under which states must refrain from returning a person to territories where their life or freedom would be at risk, including rejection at the border or non-admission to the territory. Measures implemented in response to COVID-19 cannot prevent those who need international protection from requesting it. Even in exceptional situations such as the one we face, imposing measures that prevent the admission of refugees or asylum seekers without protecting them against return violates their human rights and runs contrary to states' obligations.
Thus, the measures implemented in response to this crisis cannot be discriminatory or give rise to undesirable outcomes that negatively affect the enjoyment of human rights. On the contrary, they must be proportional, necessary, designed and implemented from a human rights and gender perspective, and count on the participation of civil society organizations. These measures cannot justify the systematic use of detention of migrants, asylum seekers, or refugees.
In this regard, we call on states to refrain from detaining migrants and refugees, release those already detained, and guarantee their access to housing, food, and health services in public shelters where all sanitary conditions are ensured to avoid contagion, where trained health personnel are available, and where differentiated attention is provided to populations in greater vulnerability, such as older persons, persons with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ persons, women, boys, and girls. Those same conditions must be available in countries of origin for people who may have been deported while the sanitary quarantine period lasts.
Likewise, faced with limits on mobility and/or restrictions on constitutional guarantees imposed by nations that particularly affect migrants' access to work, states in the region must guarantee their access to means of subsistence just like the rest of the population.
For their part, in the face of border militarization and complaints of repression, we remind states that military forces must refrain from taking on citizen security, health, or migration tasks. Using military personnel for these roles exposes the population to greater risks and new human rights violations.
At the same time, access must be guaranteed to relevant, timely, clear, evidence-based, high-quality information about the pandemic. States must refrain from using discriminatory, stigmatizing, or xenophobic discourse or measures, and from obstructing or criminalizing the work of persons or organizations that provide assistance and defend the rights of this population. They must also adopt positive measures to combat discriminatory discourse or actions by third parties in the context of the crisis.
Finally, the undersigned organizations emphasize that none of the measures imposed in the context of COVID-19 can justify human rights violations. We therefore expect states to respond to the health emergency we face in accordance with their international obligations, and we will remain vigilant in monitoring and denouncing the human rights situation of people in human mobility and populations in diverse situations of risk.
In a region so affected by inequality, poverty, corruption, and extractivism, we hope that in the context of this crisis states will move toward building more supportive and robust systems of social protection and security, toward full access to water and health for all people, and toward recognition and guarantee of the human rights of the whole population without any discrimination.
Signatory organizations:
International:
Regional Coordinator of Economic and Social Research (CRIES)
International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA)
Refugees International
Women's Link Worldwide
Regional:
Alianza Americas
Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)
Conference of Jesuit Provincials of Latin America and the Caribbean
Foundation for Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law (FJEDD)
Scalabrinian Mission Ecuador
Central American Black Organization
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
Jesuit Network with Migrants Latin America and the Caribbean (RJM-LAC)
Southern Coalitions Network (RCS)
Synergia - Human Rights Initiatives
Argentina:
Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS)
Argentine Commission for Refugees and Migrants (CAREF)
Brazil:
Conectas Human Rights
Missao Paz
Chile:
Legal Clinic for Migrants and Refugees of Diego Portales University
Legal Clinic, Alberto Hurtado University
Jesuit Migrant Service Chile
Colombia:
Center for the Study of Law, Justice and Society (Dejusticia)
Corporacion Caribe Afirmativo
Legal Assistance Program for People in Need of International Protection and Victims of Armed Conflict - Corporacion Opcion Legal - Colombia
Legal Clinic for Migrants of Universidad de los Andes
Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES)
Costa Rica:
Jesuit Migrant Service Costa Rica (SJM-CR)
El Salvador:
Jose Simeon Canas Central American University (UCA)
United States:
Communities Organizing Latino Power and Action (COPAL)
Cooperacion Migrante
CRECEN
Houston's America For All
Latin America Working Group (LAWG)
Lila LGBTQ Initiative Inc
Women's Refugee Commission (WRC)
Women Working Together USA
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA)
The Chelsea Collaborative
Guatemala:
Asociacion Pop N'oj
Institute of International Relations and Research for Peace (IRIPAZ)
Institute of Research and Outreach on Global and Territorial Dynamics (IDGT)
Honduras:
Reflection, Research, and Communication Team (ERIC)
Mexico:
Asylum Access Mexico (AAMX) A.C.
Collective of Transnational Women
Club Mujeres con Decision
Comprehensive Human Rights in Action, A.C. (DHIA)
Sin Fronteras IAP
Nicaragua:
Jesuit Migrant Service Nicaragua (SJM-Nicaragua)
Panama:
Fe y Alegria
Paraguay:
Coordinator for the Rights of Children and Adolescents of Paraguay (CDIA)
Dominican Republic:
Centre for Migration Observation and Social Development in the Caribbean (OBMICA)
Venezuela:
CIVILIS Human Rights
Prepara Familia
Venezuelan Program for Education-Action in Human Rights (Provea)
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS Venezuela)
Community Learning Centers (CECODAP)
Center for Justice and Peace (Cepaz)
Accion Solidaria
Human Rights Center of the Andres Bello Catholic University (CDH UCAB)