MEDIA REACTION ON QUARANTINE NOVEMBER 14, 2005

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 002401 SIPDIS FOR PD/WHA (RQUIROZ),IIP/G/WHA, WHA/CEN, AND PRM INFO IIP/T/ES EMBASSIES FOR PAOS, IOS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OIIP PREL SMIG KPAO HO SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON QUARANTINE NOVEMBER 14, 2005 ¶1. On 11/14 the Tegucigalpa-based liberal daily "La Tribuna" published an editorial entitled "Quarantine." "We have said recently that we need to worry about the large number of deportees from the United States that have been returned to Central American countries. This is especially true for Honduras with 14,905 deportees this year who have been returned because they were in the United States illegally and did not possess papers to benefit from the TPS. "We have to add to this number 61,389 Hondurans who have been returned from Guatemala and Mexico en route to the `American Dream.' Excluded are those who never arrived anywhere, asphyxiated within the cars of a train, suffocated by the heat, or victims of other mishaps encountered on their paths." "Some of these deportees were captured because they were involved in illegal activities or drug trafficking, murder, or other crimes. This is a grave situation because the gangs in Central America are linked to exactly these types of activities. Immigrants who left for the United States applied what they had learned in the ghettos of Honduras to new locales and when they ran into the law they were deported." "What has always intrigued us is that, if many of these deportees are caught because of violations of the law, why don't they establish a quarantine system, since the deportation that is happening returns criminals to this country, which adds to the unstoppable delinquency that Honduras suffers? The expansion of gangs in Central America is clearly linked to the number of deportees. This is made worse still by the potential for these gangs to have links to terrorist groups." Ford