Up to 50 Percent of Illegal Immigrants Estimated to Have COVID-19: ...

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Border Patrol agents apprehend a group of illegal immigrants
near downtown El Paso, Texas, on March 15, 2021.
(Justin Hamel/AFP via Getty Images)







Up to 50 Percent of Illegal Immigrants Estimated to
Have COVID-19:
National Sheriff’s Association




BY SAMUEL ALLEGRI
March 17, 2021
Updated: March 18, 2021



As concerns over the surge of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border grows,
the National Sheriffs Association is calling on the Biden administration to secure the
border and protect Americans.

Among the dangers that come along with the thousands of illegal border crossings
that occur every month, which include human trafficking, drug smuggling, potential
terrorism, death at the hands of coyotes, bandits, and harsh weather, significantly
complicating the challenges border patrol and law enforcement face is the COVID-19
pandemic, the association said in a draft border security resolution set for a vote at a
meeting in Arizona in June, according to The Washington Examiner.

Up to 50 percent of illegal immigrants are testing positive for COVID-19, the disease
the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causes, the sheriffs association wrote.

“We are already seeing strains to the public health system of border communities.
The suspension of deportations has led to the release of undocumented persons into
border communities. We then have an affirmative responsibility to provide medical care
for them if they are infected with COVID,” the statement reads. “This at a time when
our communities are already grappling with this public health emergency and desperately
trying to roll out the vaccines. We now face a serious potential public health crisis
along the border.”




Border Patrol agents arrest seven illegal immigrants who tried
to evade capture near Penitas, Texas, on March 15, 2021.
(Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)


“In any other construct, infection rates that high would be cause for alarm by
public health officials. Yet, we are currently engaging in policies that have potentially
opened, rather than restricted, undocumented traffic into the U.S.,”
the sheriffs said in the resolution.

In February, Border Patrol apprehended over 100,000 illegal immigrants at the southern
border, and about 26,000 evaded capture, according to Jaeson Jones, a former
Texas Department of Public Safety captain who received the provisional Border Patrol
data from internal sources, which was reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Many of those crossing now are unaccompanied minors (9,457 in February), who are
meant to be passed to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) within
72 hours, but the sheer number of minors has overwhelmed the system.

HHS has just opened a second facility for the burgeoning number of minors.

When asked what he thought was driving the trend, Miller said,
“There’s certainly economic instability in the region that’s unparalleled.”

“All you have to do is look at the pandemic … the COVID rate infections down in South
and Central America,” he said. “We recently had a hurricane, continued violence, unemployment.
So if you put all those issues together, … you’re going to see folks looking for a better way of life.”