More than a few of the illegal-alien Central Americans who have trudged north through Mexico, hoping to file false asylum claims and disappear into the United States, are sick — very sick, with communicable viral or bacterial diseases.
One of those diseases might be the mumps, according to a report from the health department in Houston.
Seven Cases
“We confirm seven mumps cases at an [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] facility in Houston,” the department tweeted. “All seven individuals are adult detainees who were detained during their infectious period. There is no evidence the disease was transmitted to anyone outside of the facility.”
City officials reported that all seven were adults, which likely means they were not vaccinated as children. “Since these individuals were isolated inside the facility during the period they were infectious, we do not anticipate these cases posing a threat to the community,” Dr. David Persse said. Persse is Houston’s local health authority and EMS medical director.
The city also said the health department “is working with the facility on infection control methods and will conduct an on-site visit in the coming days.”
But that doesn’t address an important question that is, ultimately, unanswerable: How many “migrants” had mumps and other communicable and possibly fatal diseases, such as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, but were not symptomatic at the time they were held, and thus released into the United States to spread contagion among unsuspecting Americans?
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Epidemics Coming?
Seven cases of the mumps doesn’t sound all that bad. But they aren’t the whole story.
As the Washington Times reported on December 31, dozens of sick “migrants” are being deposited in the lap of ICE — and then to hospitals — each and every day.
“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,” the Times reported.
If that number is holding, then in the first month of 2019, border agents have dealt with more than 1,500 sick illegal aliens.
“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.,” the Times reported.
Kevin McAleenan, chieftain of Customs and Border Protection, told the Times that most of the illegal aliens are sick when they depart their homes in Central America, which means they are spreading diseases among those “migrants” who aren’t sick.
“We’re talking about cases of pneumonia, tuberculosis, parasites,” he told the Times. “These are not things that developed urgently in a matter of days.”
And since “commercial buses are also delivering migrants to parts of the border such as western Texas and New Mexico that have traditionally been less afflicted by the flow of immigrants crossing into the U.S. illegally,” Americans could face a major outbreak of deadly disease.
One-third Sick
Another indicator of just how sickly the illegal aliens are came from Mexican authorities in November.
Of the 6,000 “migrants” in Tijuana at the time, more than 2,220 were ill with AIDS, chickenpox, and tuberculosis. They also had lice, which carries the typhus bacterium, Rickettsia prowazekii, and some might well have been sick with American trypanosomiasis, also known as Chagas disease.
Last year, the National Center for Biotechnology Information reported that 37,684 immigrants with TB entered the United States between 2005 and 2009. Most, more than 9,000, came from Mexico. Of more concern, however, than TB generally are the multi-drug resistant cases that came in: 482.
Image: Rost-9D via iStock / Getty Images Plus
