INTERNATIONAL
Court blocks Trump from ending DACA
Coronavirus leaves LGBTQ Salvadorans even more vulnerable SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — In the months since the coronavirus pandemic began in China, it has affected the entire world and El Salvador is no exception. Apart from not acquiring this virus and taking necessary sanitation measures, there are also concerns over the violation of human rights and the lack of support for the most vulnerable people who have been affected by the country’s mandatory lockdown. One of the vulnerable groups that has been affected has been the LGBTQ community. El Salvador since March 11 has been Aspidh Arcoíris Trans, a transgender rights group in El Salvador, has helped under a mandatory national lockdown vulnerable LGBTQ people during the that has, among other things, closed down national lockdown. the country’s businesses and face-to-face Photo courtesy of Aspidh Arcoíris Trans academic life. The situation has already had a significant impact on the Salvadoran economy. “At the beginning, the situation in the country was handled correctly, such as the decision to close the airport in a timely manner; but there was poor planning,” Karla Guevara, a lawyer who is executive director of Colectivo Alejandría, told the Blade. Guevara adds quarantine centers became “the epicenter of the pandemic” in El Salvador because they were “poorly … managed.” They have also been accused of violating the human rights of those who have been sent to them. One such case involves a transgender man whose gender identity was not respected. The El Salvador Transgender Men Organization (HT El Salvador) told the Blade a trans man returned from Guatemala on March 13, the day the country’s state of emergency took effect. Authorities detained him and temporarily sent him to a quarantine center in Usulután Department. “He spent a few days in that place with other LGBTI people who had arrived in the country,” an HT El Salvador representative told the Blade. “At no time was trans people’s gender identity respected.” The trans man was then transferred to another quarantine center in Chalatenango Department, which did not have adequate conditions. People who were housed there were not healthy and were not given food. “HT El Salvador later brought food and personal hygiene kits to this man that could also be distributed to more trans people isolated there,” said HT El Salvador. The organization does not know whether the kits were distributed to trans people, which led them to file complaints with El Salvador’s human rights ombudsman’s office. “It was a clear violation of human rights for those people who allegedly violated the lockdown to be in quarantine centers,” Erick Ortiz, an openly gay National Assembly candidate for the Nuestro Tiempo party, told the Blade. “It was more complex for the LGBTI community, since there were no protocols in those quarantine centers that guaranteed an environment free of discrimination and violence; and there were unfortunately cases of discrimination and violence against gay men, lesbian women and trans people within these quarantine centers.” ERNESTO VALLE
The U.S. Supreme Court last week in a 5-4 ruling blocked the Trump administration from ending a program that allows young undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. and obtain work permits. More than 600,000 immigrants have benefitted from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program since the Obama administration enacted it in 2012. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law notes this figure includes 39,000 LGBTQ “Dreamers.” The Trump administration in 2017 announced it would end the Obama-era program, but this effort was challenged in court. “Undocumented LGBT young adults are a particularly vulnerable population,” said Williams Institute Research Director Kerith J. Conron in a statement. “DACA helps many of them to get an education, find employment, and support themselves and their families while contributing to the U.S. economy.” The Human Rights Campaign and the National LGBTQ Task Force are among the LGBTQ advocacy groups that welcomed Thursday’s ruling. “Today, the Supreme Court put a speedbump in the road for Trump’s attempt to use the lives of undocumented immigrants to drive his nationalist agenda,” said National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey. “The Supreme Court did the right thing by upholding the right of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients, many of whom are LGBTQ, to stay in the U.S. to work, attend school and be protected from deportation.” The Supreme Court issued its DACA decision three days after it ruled Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra — who is among the attorneys general from 20 states and D.C. who challenged the Trump administration’s efforts to end DACA — praised the ruling. “Today, justice prevailed for every ‘Dreamer’ who has worked hard to help build our country — our neighbors, teachers, doctors and first responders,” said Becerra in a statement. “Today, America told the Dreamers that this is their home.” MICHAEL K. LAVERS
Activists demand cancellation of Puerto Rico gossip show Advocacy groups have joined calls for a Puerto Rican gossip show to be cancelled after its host mocked a lesbian woman of African descent. Antulio “Kobbo” Santarrosa, host of “La Comay”, which is hosted by a life-sized puppet with the same name that he voices, mocked Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, a lawyer who is running for the Puerto Rico Senate, on the June 12 program. WAPA, a Puerto Rican television station, aired Santarrosa’s “SuperXclusivo” program when Pedro Julio Serrano, founder of Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, a Puerto Rican LGBTQ advocacy group, in 2013 launched a boycott after La Comay mocked a gay man who was murdered. WAPA subsequently cancelled “SuperXclusivo.” Mega TV has aired “La Comay” since January 2019. Serrano on Friday told the Blade that 11 of the program’s 12 advertisers have pulled their ads in response to Santarrosa’s comments against Rivera. “We already took Kobbo off of WAPA TV in 2013, now we have to get him off of Mega TV and out of television forever,” said Serrano in a statement he released on June 14. “Transphobia, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and any other form of discrimination has no place on our television and much less in our society. We therefore demand that Mega TV remove Kobbo from television and cancel the program ‘La Comay’ for promoting hate.” MICHAEL K. LAVERS
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JUNE 26, 2020 • LOSANGELESBLADE.COM