US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA2401

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