The Delta variant of COVID-19 is causing concern across the country. Some state officials have either reinstated mask mandates or are looking into doing so. Anxiety about upcoming closures is spreading across the nation as Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wobble on what is the appropriate path to take now. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be much official or public worry about the disease being distributed to American citizens via the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border. Tom Homan, formerly of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), puts the blame squarely on President Joe Biden.
According to Fox News, the retired acting ICE director and Fox News contributor said that allowing the border to remain “wide open” while urging Americans to continue holding themselves “accountable to COVID” was the president’s fault. The report continued: “[T]he act of having ‘released hundreds of COVID-positive people into the interior’ shows ‘incompetence at the highest level’ from the Biden administration.”
Homan further explained:
“The northern border we have with Canada is still closed because of COVID and the southern border is wide open. And you're right, I mean, ICE already had 7,500 positive COVID cases run through their system. Right now, as we're speaking, they have nearly 1,200 active cases in custody right now that came across that border. And what really scares me is that nearly 300,000 got away this year.
“Those who escaped border apprehension, how many of them had COVID? And we already know the US government on purpose has released hundreds of COVID-positive people into the interior by either a bus ticket or a plane ticket and released them into the United States. This is simply incompetence at the highest level. At the same time, they're talking about Americans masking up. They're talking about door-to-door vaccinations, the U.S. citizens being held accountable to COVID but the southwest border is wide open.”
In April, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration for doing nothing to stem the flow of illegals into the state. In a statement, he claimed, “President Biden’s outright disregard of the public health crisis in Texas by welcoming and encouraging mass gatherings of illegal aliens is hypocritical and dangerous.”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been advocating to slow immigration at the border and blaming Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for not taking action. He remarked:
“The Biden border crisis is getting worse and worse every day. We are on pace for over 2 million people to cross illegally into this country. We have the highest level of illegal immigration in over 20 years. Last year, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. How did we go from incredible success to incredible failure? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris screwed this up.”
The senator used three actions the administration took early on that he said are hugely to blame: halting the construction of the border wall, reinstating the catch-and-release policy, and pulling out of the Remain in Mexico program. Cruz continued, saying, “Joe and Kamala want darkness on the disaster they have created. And not only that, they’re proposing to make it worse. Joe Biden is now talking about ending title 42.” Title 42 allows for preventing illegal aliens with diseases, such as COVID, from being released into the country.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
In April, The New York Times reported on the conditions of the migrants at the border and COVID. The article introduced Pavel Brigido Rivero, who set out with his wife from Cuba to seek asylum in the United States. “They managed to cross eight countries, sleeping in buses and doing odd jobs, without ever contracting the virus,” the story revealed. It wasn’t until they crossed into the United States and then transported to a heavily crowded border station that Rivero tested positive for the virus and became very sick.
In March, more than 170,000 people crossed the border, most from countries that still had high COVID rates. According to border officials, it takes at least 90 minutes and even up to three hours to process one individual, which includes fingerprints and background checks. Officials claim they just don’t have the extra 20 minutes per person to test for the coronavirus and wait for the results.
In California’s Imperial Valley, where Rivero was caught trying to illegally cross into the United States, of those the Border Patrol released into communities, 15% tested positive for COVID between April 7 and April 13. According to The Times, this is “three times higher than the official average, according to the California Department of Social Services.” As Liberty Nation reported back in May, Tennessee officials were angry when they discovered the government had been secretly sending migrant children to their communities without their approval or awareness. How many were carrying the disease?
Those living in the border states have expressed fears about the overwhelming number of aliens crossing into the United States, the lack of testing for COVID, and the fact that those who do test positive for the virus are being released into the communities. Mark Lane, who runs the Minority Humanitarian Foundation in San Diego, CA, said, “People who were on the bus or in the cell with people who tested positive are going to test positive.” He added: “Uber drivers, taxi drivers and people like us, people who are not fully vaccinated, are getting exposed. Today I took two guys who were released and put them in a TSA line with 500 people on it.”
As LN’s Graham J. Noble suggested:
“One would have thought that if this health crisis were as serious as the American public is being told, then the very first logical step would be to ensure that not a single unvaccinated person enters the U.S. from any other country.”
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Read more from Kelli Ballard.
