It certainly is not new.
The Washington watchdog Judicial Watch disclosed when Barack Obama was letting in tens of thousands of illegal alien minors that experts were warning of “serious health risks.”
Among the biggest concerns at that time were swine flu, dengue fever and Ebola.
The problem persists, but the new wrinkle is that thousands crossing the border illegally are facing new complications with what would ordinarily be routine deportation hearings, because they are under quarantine.
Reuters reports thousands are on lock-down because of their illnesses, or exposure to illnesses. And while mumps, measles and chicken pox are the biggest attention-getters, other diseases are a concern.
Reuters featured the case of Christian Mejia, who thought he could get out of immigration detention in Louisiana by finding a lawyer, only to end up being ordered deported anyway because he was locked down by a mumps outbreak at the Pine Prairie U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center in Louisiana.
“When there is just one person who is sick, everybody pays,” the 19-year-old told Reuters.
ICE said that nationwide more than 50,000 are in detention, and 2,287 of them, as of last week, were in quarantine.
Cases of mumps, influenza and chicken pox have been confirmed.
Issues have been reported in detention centers in Louisiana, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi and Colorado.
“We are seeing migrants arrive with illnesses and medical conditions in unprecedented numbers,” Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told Reuters.
There have been 186 mumps cases in immigration detention facilities in Texas since October, the largest outbreak in centers there in recent years.
In Colorado, the Aurora Contract Detention Facility near Denver run by the GEO Group has had 357 quarantined after eight confirmed cases of mumps detected since February, officials said.
Consequently, civil rights attorney Danielle Jefferis told Reuters, court hearings for quarantined immigrants at Aurora were largely canceled.
WND columnist Daniel Horowitz wrote: “First, the illegal immigrants came for jobs and family unification with other relatives who illegally violated our sovereignty. Then they came for welfare and abortion access. Now they are coming with dangerous diseases.”
And late last year, health experts warned that illegal aliens carrying dangerous disease “could happen here.”
Dr. Jane Orient, the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said then, “It’s insane to bring in migrants from any country without property health screening.”
Her comments came in a report by Judicial Watch.
It was at a time when multiple “caravans” of illegal aliens were marching toward the nation’s southern border.
Orient explained there are extremely drug-resistant strands of tuberculosis among the infectious diseases the Central American migrants are likely to bring in.
Others include mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya, both widespread in the region.
Meanwhile, Venezuelans fleeing their distressed nation are spreading to neighboring countries diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue, tuberculosis and AIDS, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
“The government is putting kids with lice and scabies and other health issues in American schools without people knowing the health risks,” Orient said in the report.
