Border Patrol Agent and Rio Grande Valley National BP Council vice president Chris Cabrera told ABC News that there is no real medical screening and agents are encountering illegal aliens with infections: ‘We are starting to see chicken pox, MRSA staph infections, we are starting to see different viruses…. It’s contagious, we are transporting people to different parts of the state (Texas) and different parts of the country…. We are sending people everywhere. The average person doesn’t know what’s going on down here.” [Navideh Forghani, “Undocumented Immigrants bringing diseases across border?” ABC15.com (Arizona), June 9, 2014]
Patrice Lynes, a nurse and organizer of the Murrieta, California blockade of buses transporting illegal aliens to the city, warns that the waves of illegals are going to create a “crisis for Americans. They are bringing polio, leprosy, venereal diseases, and tuberculosis, including the drug-resistant variety.” She points out that, “Regular TB, and drug-resistant TB, both are airborne and both are highly contagious. The regular strain costs about $17,000 a year to treat. The drug-resistant strain may not be treatable, and [if it is] will cost upward of $100,000 a year to treat.” And other tropical diseases are coming with the illegals, as well as swine flu, scabies, and lice. [Gina Loudon, “Nurse: Illegals’ Baggage includes TB, leprosy, polio,” Smart Life with Dr. Gina, www.drginaloudon.com, July 9, 2014]
Todd Starnes of FOX News reported that the Obama Administration is trying to keep this information from the public. As he related, “a government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions as the camp. They said taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans.” One eye-witness told him that “children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat, as well as mental and emotional issues.” Lice were epidemic “but everything was kept ‘hush-hush.’” A horrified nurse remarked, “We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness—all this stuff coming into the country.” [Todd Starnes, “Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest,” Todd’s American Dispatch, www.FoxNews.com, July 2, 2014]
In a hard-hitting letter addressed to Thomas Frieden, Director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), who is also a medical doctor, wrote on July 7, 2014:
As you know, the United States is currently experiencing a crisis at our southern border. The influx of families and unaccompanied children at the border poses many risks, including grave public health threats.
As a physician for over thirty years, I am well aware of the dangers infectious diseases pose. In fact, infectious diseases remain in the top ten causes of death in the United States…. Reports of illegal migrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus, and tuberculosis are particularly concerning. Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles.
As the unaccompanied children continue to be transported to shelters around the country on commercial airlines and other forms of transportation, I have serious concerns that the diseases carried by these children may begin to spread too rapidly to control. In fact, as you undoubtedly know, some of these diseases have no known cure.
[Press Release, www.gingrey.house.gov; Jim Galloway, “Phil Gingrey: Border kids could spark epidemics,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, AJC.com, July 8, 2014]