ATHENS: Greece will reopen private beaches on Saturday and museums next week, health officials said Friday as the tourism-dependent country gears up for a May 15 travel restart.
Museums are to reopen on May 14 — a day before Greece officially launches its travel season — followed by reduced-capacity outdoor cinemas on May 21 and theaters on May 28.
The government began in early April to relax lockdown restrictions originally imposed in November by reopening most retail shops except malls.
This was followed by high schools reopening a week later, and by outdoor restaurants and cafes on May 3.
However, tourism operators do not expect major travel arrivals before July.
Last month quarantine restrictions were lifted for vaccinated or tested travelers from the EU and a small number of other countries including Britain and the United States.
The third wave of the pandemic hit Greece hard with the majority of the country’s more than 10,000 virus deaths occurring over the last few months.
The country has recorded over 350,000 cases of coronavirus in a population of 10.8 million.
Over 3.4 million vaccinations have been carried out, and over a million people have received their second dose.
Greece to reopen beaches, museums after long lockdown
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Greece to reopen beaches, museums after long lockdown
- Museums are to reopen on May 14, a day before Greece officially launches its travel season
- Government began in early April to relax lockdown restrictions originally imposed in November
Federal judge rules Kilmar Abrego Garcia can’t be re-detained by immigration authorities
- Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia because a 90-day detention period has expired and the government has no viable plan for deporting him, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The Salvadoran national’s case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to his home country last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by Department of Homeland Security officials.
The government “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in Maryland, wrote in her Tuesday order. “From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future.”
Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced danger there from a gang that had threatened his family. By mistake, he was deported there anyway last year.
Facing public pressure and a court order, President Donald Trump’s administration brought him back in June, but only after securing an indictment charging him with human smuggling in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, Trump officials have said he cannot stay in the U.S. In court filings, officials have said they intended to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia.
In her Tuesday order, Xinis noted the government has “purposely — and for no reason — ignored the one country that has consistently offered to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, and to which he agrees to go.” That country is Costa Rica.
Abrego Garcia's attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, argued in court that immigration detention is not supposed to be a punishment. Immigrants can only be detained as a way to facilitate their deportation and cannot be held indefinitely with no viable deportation plan.
“Since Judge Xinis ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia released in mid-December, the government has tried one trick after another to try to get him re-detained,” Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote in an email on Tuesday. “In her decision today, she recognized that if the government were truly trying to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the United States, they would have sent him to Costa Rica long before today.”
The government should now engage in a good-faith effort to work out the details of removal to Costa Rica, Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote.
