Over 2,000 migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody have been quarantined due to an outbreak of mumps and other diseases, and this number has spiked over the last year. For the previous two years, ICE had not encountered even one case of mumps among the detainee population.
"As of March 7, 2019, there was a total of 2,287 detainees cohorted for exposure to a detainee with a contagious condition," said ICE spokesperson Brendan Raedy in a statement.
In the past year, there have been health investigations at 51 ICE detention facilities for mumps, chickenpox and influenza, according to Raedy. There have been 236 reported cases of mumps, with another 16 suspected cases during this time period.
Mumps is a contagious virus typically spread through saliva and mucus. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, loss of appetite and puffiness around the cheeks and jaw from swollen salivary glands.
Last year, there were 423 people documented with influenza and 461 people with chickenpox in ICE custody, according to the agency.
But from January 2016 to February 2018, there were zero notifications of mumps, and only 73 of chickenpox and 34 of influenza, indicating a serious increase and what one can categorize a crisis.
"ICE takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care. ICE is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency's custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care," Raedy said in a statement.
Since October, 186 Texas detainees across the state contracted mumps ranging in age from 13 to 66 years old. "They should be in isolation," Dr. David Persse of Houston's public health authority said. "To some degree, this is foreseeable, because you're bringing a lot of people and housing them in tight spaces for long periods," he added.
In December, CBP mandated secondary medical reviews of all children, after two Guatemalan children died after being in Border Protection custody.
The deaths of a 7-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy in CBP custody in December drew fierce criticism with Democrats and a number of immigrant-rights groups dramatically claimed the agency has blood on its hands.
ICE said that comprehensive medical care is provided to everyone in custody, including access to nurses, physicians, and to 24-hour emergency care.
Illegal aliens who cross the border are usually transferred from Border Protection custody to ICE custody for further processing or release.
For some reason [LOL] the left fails to make the connection between our border crisis and the huge measles and infectious disease outbreak the nation has been experiencing.
For example, a recent article from Reuters (
"Mumps, other outbreaks force U.S. detention centers to quarantine over 2,000 migrants") failed to make the obvious connection, although it spoke in explicit detail about detained aliens who were quarantined because of exposure to vaccine-preventable diseases. The key paragraph in that article (from my perspective) states:
ICE health officials have been notified of 236 confirmed or probable cases of mumps among detainees in 51 facilities in the past 12 months, compared to no cases detected between January 2016 and February 2018. Last year, 423 detainees were determined to have influenza and 461 to have chicken pox. All three diseases are largely preventable by vaccine.
Unfortunately, the article doesn't focus on whether most or any of those detainees had mumps, influenza, or chicken pox at the time that they were taken into custody.
That would appear to be kind of, you know, important.
Instead, the article focuses on the response of ICE to those potentially exposed to those diseases and the effect of quarantines on the ability of those detainees to appear in court.
In FY 2018, the Yuma, Arizona sector [of the Border Patrol] incurred over $700,000 in medical care costs to cover 1,700 aliens who were apprehended and who had to be transported to the hospital.
If this isn't a border crisis as well as a public health crisis, then what is?
The changing demographic of migrants who are illegally entering the United States, (unaccompanied alien children [UAC]) and "family units" from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, heightens the danger that such diseases will make their way to this country. [I use scare quotes for "family units" due to the fact that in many cases, there are no familial ties between the adults and children crossing the border.]
A recent article in the
Washington Times, "Number of sick kids soars at border; tuberculosis, flu, infections land migrants in hospitals" states:
Border authorities are referring 50 people a day for urgent medical care, including tuberculosis, flu and even pregnant women about to give birth, a top official said Monday, saying it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.
Most of those in need of care are children, and a staggering 28 percent are under age 5, having been dragged along for the trip by parents who in many cases are hoping to use the children as a shield against speedy deportation from the U.S.
This article was written after the two children [mentioned above] died in U.S. border agent custody.
CBP Commissioner
Kevin McAleenan said most of those who needed help were already sick when they arrived at the border, and some appear to have made the initial decision to leave their country in spite of being sick at the time.
“Many were ill before they departed their homes,” McAleenan said. “We’re talking about cases of pneumonia, tuberculosis, parasites. These are not things that developed urgently in a matter of days.”
Now there's a new trend in the traffic coming from Central America. Smugglers are using commercial buses that take under a week for illegal aliens to get to the border, far faster than the month it used to take by walking and hitching rides. This makes it easier for the sick people to make the journey. McAleenan said the faster trips provides "confidence for parents to bring younger children."
We have a real crisis at the border and it's multifaceted.
It isn't just about illegal aliens sneaking into our country, taking our jobs, doing criminal activities, and using our tax dollars from our entitlements to which they never contributed. They are also bringing communicable diseases and we need to have better control of this for the protection of our own people. To deny this problem is to deny the facts of the reality.
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