Disease Threat From Immigrant Children Wildly Overstated

Texas Observer ^ | 7/10/11 | Rachel Pearson

[DallasBiff]

Consider, for example, Guatemala. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Guatemalan kids are more likely than Texans to be immunized for most infectious diseases. Guatemala has universal health care. Vaccines are 100 percent funded by the government.

[freekitty]

Exactly. They can bunk with Michelle and Barry and their family.

[jwalsh07]

She has obviously never been to Guatemala. I have. They have major communicable disease problems because it is mostly a third world hellhole. Which is not meant to say that Guatemalans are bad people, they just elect socialist morons like we do and the inevitable rears it’s ugly head.

[blueplum]

***And in Murrieta, California, protesters blocked buses carrying migrant children after it was revealed that some of them had been hospitalized for fevers.***

not true.

The protests at Murrieta did indeed expose that sick individuals were being transported by air, but transport of sick individuals was not the original reason for the protest that turned the buses back. We knew of the problems in Texas but I don't think it occurred to anyone at the time that the government would actually transport sick individuals by air to other states. Our focus was illegal immigration, failure to notify town administrations, airflights to San Diego instead of San Salvadore, and immigrant dumping.

MSNBC confirms the plan to abandon the bus people at the local greyhound stations:
“The preliminary screening processes can take up to four hours per person, according to National Border Patrol Council Union Representative Ron Zermeno.
“Once that screening process is complete, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were expected to take the women and children to bus depots in Perris, Riverside and Murrieta using unmarked vans.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/San-Diego-Border-Children-Undocumented-Immigrants-Protests-Murrieta-265531661.html#ixzz37CGTaZPs

It wasn't until -after- those buses were turned around, after a bus had to make an emergency stop at a hospital for a sick child, after arrival back at San Ysidro, that MSNBC states some 10 more passengers were hospitalized. CNN identifies them as 10 more children.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/02/us/california-immigrant-transfers/index.html

Some 40 more individuals on those 3 buses were treated for scabies and lice. Scabies isn't something that an uninfected person would magically become covered with in the relatively short flight from Texas to San Diego. Someone might pick up a stray lice or two, on a contaminated flight, but being covered with eggs doesn't just happen in hours. These were pre-flight, pre-existing conditions. Like everyone else in the country, we were initially shocked then angered at the audacity of the administration's handling of this crisis.

Had not the buses been turned around, had not the press and public become aware of the air flights, continued transport of sick individuals by air to various states would have remained hidden from everyone, and the narrative would have remained focused only on Texas intakes. In foresight and in hindsight, the citizens of Murrieta shouldn't be condemned for turning the buses back. They should be applauded not only for standing up for their community but for indirectly averting a nationwide health crisis by exposing 'handling practices' to light of day!