The Trump administration has paused removals to the Democratic Republic of Congo during an expanding Ebola outbreak, yet the move has created a legal and humanitarian bind: detainees already sent to the disease-struck region now face abandonment in limbo.
At least one woman caught in this bind is Adriana Zapata, a 55-year-old Colombian refugee who was flown to Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, over a month ago despite warnings that the country could not meet her complex medical needs. A US judge ordered her return to America. Immigration officials now say the travel ban imposed Monday prevents her from coming back.
"I'm just really worried about losing her," said Lauren O'Neal, Zapata's lawyer. "I don't want her to die before we can get her back here."
The halt applies only to future removals. At least 37 people have already been flown to countries affected by or neighboring the outbreak in recent months, according to Gillian Brockell, an independent journalist who tracks third-country removals. The administration has not clarified what will happen to these individuals or whether deportation flights to Uganda, South Sudan, and Rwanda will resume.
Federal officials told Politico that the pause was motivated partly by legal strategy: removing someone to an active disease zone could become grounds for an immigrant to challenge their deportation in court. Immigration agents could also potentially carry the virus during these operations, unnamed officials said. Yet the administration is invoking the travel ban as cover rather than acknowledging these concerns publicly.
"By the government's own logic, if it is not safe for people to come from there to here, it is equally unsafe to send people there," said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and the top Ebola response official at the US Agency for International Development during the 2014-15 outbreak. "On what grounds could it possibly be safe to deport people there?"
Experts argue the administration could return detainees safely if it chose to. William Walters, a former State Department official who is now an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor, is among the world's leading experts on high-risk medical evacuations. The US has previously airlifted people out of Ebola zones, including patients with active cases.
Brockell suspects the administration is weaponizing the travel ban to avoid fulfilling the judge's order. "The Trump administration could absolutely return Adriana Zapata to the US; telling the judge it can't be done just isn't true," she said.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said ICE "follows all applicable health and safety guidelines" during removal operations. The agency did not respond to questions about Zapata's case or third-country removal plans during the outbreak.
Camille Mackler, an immigration lawyer, warned that the detentions themselves raise legal questions. "Basically, the US can't send people back to where they will be persecuted, so we're exporting our immigration enforcement." Mackler also noted that detained immigrants have not been receiving adequate medical care, creating additional risk if the outbreak reaches the detention facilities where they are held.
If infected detainees were sent to Central or South America, they could introduce Ebola to regions with little experience combating the viral hemorrhagic fever. Public health measures have been put in place to mitigate this risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that all passengers from the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan will be diverted to Washington-Dulles International Airport for screening. Even travelers from Kinshasa, where no cases have been documented, will be monitored.
"CDC has initiated entry screening processes, which is a part of an overall broader, layered public health approach," said Satish Pillai, the CDC's Ebola response lead, at a Friday press conference.
Alexandra Phelan, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said screening protocols make travel risk extremely low. She argued that the proper course would be to return Zapata to the US under the judge's order and apply the same screening standards used for other returning travelers, potentially including quarantine if exposure risk existed. Since Zapata has remained in Kinshasa, which is not an active transmission zone, exposure is unlikely.
Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, called for broader action. "If the Trump administration is serious about countering the spread of Ebola, the US government should restore health-related humanitarian funding it gutted across Africa, designate temporary protected status for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, and halt all deportation flights to the region," she said.
Author James Rodriguez: "The administration is using public health as cover for policies that were designed to avoid legal accountability, not protect Americans from disease."
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