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View this email in your browser 💻 Febrauary, 7  2021
 



Newsletter No.23 
🤔 How can Honduran healthcare systems harm people rather than help them?
🤔 What more is needed from the US to really support migrants and Central America?
🤔 How are Honduran millennials reacting to elections and the pandemic?

Read on for the key issues affecting Central America, and Central Americans outside the region.

COVID-19 patients dying due to dubious procurements by the Honduran government

A patient is triaged at the Thorax Hospital. Photo by Martín Cálix 

Almost a year after Honduras declared a national state of emergency due to the pandemic and in the midst of a new surge in COVID-19 cases, only two of the seven mobile hospitals procured by the government are up and running, and these are only operating at a reduced capacity.

So far, dodgy ventilators have led to two deaths. A government agency purchased some, but they didn’t work. The procurement process involved a range of irregularities, which we detail in our in-depth piece on the issue.

“The country is collapsing, its imports and exports have dropped and, paradoxically, we’re experiencing an overvalued lempira. Then, despite the millions spent on measures to combat the pandemic, the country’s hospitals have collapsed,” said Gustavo Irías, executive director of the Center for Democratic Studies.

The corruption and impunity that were already widespread and catastrophic in Honduras have become more entrenched with the pandemic and recent floods.

Will Biden’s executive orders help migrants and Central America?

This month, Biden has passed a range of executive orders that promise serious change to how the US handles asylum requests, immigrants living in the country, and foreign policy with Central America.

These orders promote a range of important changes, including the intention to end the policy of deporting migrants to the US to a “safe” third country, and the creation of a task force to reunify an estimated 611 children who still remain separated from their parents.

However, the orders also fall short in many ways. The policy of turning all asylum seekers and migrants around at the border, which violates international law and human rights, has not been revoked.

They also ignore the role of US intervention (such as supporting the 2009 coup in Honduras, as well as unequal trade policies, and militarization of the area) in causing inequality, poverty, and high crime rates in the region. The role US companies continue to play in resources stealing and perpetuating inequality is not addressed.

Hondurans in the US request a new TPS

On average, Honduran migrants living in the US financially support five people back in their country of origin.

Given Biden’s claim to want to prevent forced migration by implementing policy in the region aimed at the causes of it, Fundación 15 de Septiembre has called on the US president to provide visas to the migrants in the US.

There are over a million Hondurans living in the US without migration rights.

US builds case linking Honduran president to organized crime

On Friday, the US government wrote a memorandum in support of its January 8 motion and rejecting a motion by the lawyers of Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez to exclude evidence. Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez allegedly accepted drug money from Fuentes.

In this latest memorandum, the US government argues that “corruption is endemic in Honduras,” and the Honduran government hasn’t been forthcoming in providing requested evidence. Nor, they say, has it “honored extradition requests relating to other charged co-conspirators.”

Most Honduran millennials don’t plan to vote in upcoming primary elections

Photo courtesy: Getty Images/AFP/ BR Smith

Honduran parties are holding primaries in March, in preparation for national elections toward the end of the year.

However, 61% of millennials don’t plan to vote, according to a poll. A similar proportion of this young, working generation want to leave the country due to lack of employment, and 77% don’t believe Honduras offers opportunities to start a business.

 
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Until next week!

This newsletter was written by Tamara Pearson and designed by Catherine Calderón.

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