The concern seems to be legitimate, even though some here refuse to believe it is even a problem.
Covid on the Border: Migrants Aren’t Tested on Arrival in U.S.
The Border Patrol says it has insufficient time and space to conduct coronavirus testing at crowded processing stations. Officials in border cities fear further spread of the virus.
The Border Patrol says it has insufficient time and space to conduct coronavirus testing at crowded processing stations. Officials in border cities fear further spread of the virus.
www.nytimes.com
Dora Eglis Ramírez and Pavel Brigido Rivero set out from Cuba to seek asylum in the United States last year, as the coronavirus rampaged across Latin America.
Starting their trek in Guyana, they managed to cross eight countries, sleeping in buses and doing odd jobs, without ever contracting the virus.
Then they crossed the
border into the United States.
U.S. Border Patrol agents intercepted them late last month in Southern California and transported the couple to a heavily crowded border station. They spent 10 days and nights in cells crammed with Brazilians, Cubans, Ecuadoreans and Indians.
Mr. Rivero, 45, came down with the coronavirus and spent the next two weeks isolated, along with his still-healthy wife, at a hotel with about 200 other migrants who had tested positive for the virus or had been exposed to someone who did.
“I was healthy until I got locked up,” he said.
As the United States vaccinates larger numbers of people and several states begin to reopen after seeing lower infection rates, the failure of U.S. authorities to test adult migrants for the coronavirus in jam-packed border processing centers is creating a potential for new transmissions, public health officials and shelter operators warn, even among migrants who may have arrived healthy at America’s door.
More than 170,000 migrants crossed the border in March — many coming from countries still grappling with high infection rates — but the Border Patrol is conducting no testing for the coronavirus during the several days that the newly arrived migrants are in U.S. custody except in cases where migrants show obvious symptoms.
About 40% of undocumented immigrants who died on their way to the U.S. and ended up in a Falfurrias, Texas, morgue had contracted COVID-19 prior to their deaths.Details: A Noticias Telemundo Investiga report shows an increased incidence of coronavirus in the bodies of migrants recovered in...
news.yahoo.com
Suspected COVID-Positive Migrants in Texas Suggest Flaws in DHS Quarantine Policies
Are DHS and the Biden administration saying one thing, and doing another?
By
Andrew R. Arthur on July 29, 2021
A La Joya, Texas, police officer was waved into the local Whataburger this week by an individual who was concerned about a group of individuals there who appeared to be ill. The officer discovered a family of migrants who claimed they had been apprehended several days before by the Border Patrol...
cis.org
A La Joya, Texas, police officer was
waved into the local Whataburger this week by an individual who was concerned about a group of individuals there who appeared to be ill. The officer discovered a family of migrants who claimed they had been apprehended several days before by the Border Patrol and had tested positive for COVID-19. This suggests there are serious flaws in DHS’s quarantine policies.
Back in March, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released
a statement on the situation at the Southwest border. He asserted that the Biden administration would continue to expel migrants—including migrant families—under Trump-era orders issued by the CDC under
Title 42 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayorkas admitted that the department could only expel family migrants if the Mexican government agreed to take them back,
which is becoming a rarity; of the more than 50,000 migrants in family units that were apprehended by Border Patrol at the Southwest border in
June, fewer than 8,100 were expelled under Title 42.
The secretary asserted, however, that DHS was taking steps to contain the spread of the coronavirus by such migrants and had “partnered with community-based organizations to test and quarantine families that Mexico has not had the capacity to receive.”
He further contended that his department had “developed a framework for partnering with local mayors and public health officials to pay for 100% of the expense for testing, isolation, and quarantine for migrants”.
Which brings me back to the Whataburger in La Joya, a border town just west of McAllen.
debatepolitics.com
www.nbcnews.com
