The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says “a combination of vaccination and routine infection control practices will provide the best protection from COVID-19 for immigration applicants and U.S. communities.” The Biden administration is failing at both.
COVID is considered a “respiratory syndrome,” making it a Class A Inadmissible Condition. Since the Immigration Act of 1891, entry to the U.S. is barred for “persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease.” A 2014 executive order affirmed this policy.
Beginning Oct. 1, the government will require that immigrants applying through legal channels show proof of COVID vaccination. Yet migrants crossing America’s southern border aren’t getting anywhere near the same treatment.
Illegal border crossers are not routinely tested for COVID before they are bused and flown to cities across the country. Officials in McAllen, Texas, reported last month that U.S. authorities have released more than 7,000 COVID cases into their border community since February.
“The administration is handing COVID-positive migrants over to NGOs [non-governmental organizations] with no restrictions on their movement, and no notice to local officials in the places they are housed,” according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Paradoxically, while COVID-carrying migrants move around the country, CDC’s director this week advised unvaxxed Americans not to travel over the Labor Day weekend.
(Note: Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have a combined average vaccination rate of 22 percent. The U.S. is 53 percent.)
The Border Patrol says screening migrants for COVID would just take too much time, and there aren’t enough resources to quarantine those who test positive anyway. The Department of Homeland Security said it is working on tentative plans to send an unspecified number vaccine doses to the border.
As badly as Biden’s border team is botching the health-security operation, open-borders advocates are angling to make the situation worse. The American Civil Liberties Union, Texas Civil Rights Project, RAICES, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Oxfam and others are resuming their lawsuit to block the lightly used Title 42 policy that authorizes immediate expulsions on health grounds.
“People have a legal right to seek safety in America and our government has the resources to safely process them into the country to have their cases heard,” argues Karla Marisol Vargas, senior attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project.
The word “safely” is key here. Amid the mixed messages and erratic application of law, it seems safe to say this administration isn’t doing its job to anyone’s satisfaction … except the death-dealing cartels, of course.