Posted on 06/16/2016 7:05:16 PM PDT by Elderberry
Newly arrived refugees have doubled the incidence of tuberculosis in Texas, Watchdog.org has learned.
The Department of State Health Services said 1,238 refugees, asylum-seekers, Cuban parolees, human-trafficking victims and holders of special immigrant visas tested positive for TB.
Texas typically reports 1,200 to 1,300 active TB cases annually, DSHS said.
DSHS spokesman Chris Van Deusen said the positive screenings by refugees could indicate latent TB infections.
“They have been exposed to TB and have the bacteria dormant in their body. It does not indicate that they are sick with tuberculosis and capable of spreading it,” Van Deusen said.
But the federal Refugee Health Program runs initial health screenings, but does not follow immigrants long-term, so the agency doesn’t have data on whether any have progressed to active tuberculosis .
Individuals who test positive for TB in Texas are referred to local health departments or DSHS regional offices for further assessment and treatment, Van Deusen said.
“People with latent TB infection don’t present a risk to the public because they cannot spread the disease to others. Following through with the recommended treatment of antibiotics should eliminate the infection so it will never develop into active disease,” he added.
Some 950 refugees settling in the Lone Star State tested positive for TB — 16.8 percent of the refugee arrivals from Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015.
Overall, 10.9 percent of the refugees, asylum-seekers, Cuban parolees, human-trafficking victims and holders of special immigrant visas tested positive in Texas.
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, told Watchdog: “The rising incidence of tuberculosis in Texas is another reason we need to secure our border. Americans should not be put at risk by illegal immigrants.”
The Obama administration’s fast-tracking of refugees — with a goal of bringing 10,000 Syrians to the United States by September — could mean more cases on the way.
“The Obama administration has developed ‘alternative legal pathways’ for refugees in order to circumvent the numerical targets of the refugee resettlement program,” Nayla Rush, a senior researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies, has written.
With a goal of accepting 100,000 refugees this fiscal year, the U.S. is on a pace to boost refugee resettlement by 40 percent over last year.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 66 percent of all TB cases in the U.S. involve foreign-born persons — with Texas, California, New York and Florida accounting for over half of the cases.
Rep. Brian Babin, R-Baytown, told Watchdog: “The health infections that refugees are bringing into the U.S. are often overshadowed by the national security risks that they pose.”
Citing a “financial burden and health risk to the people of Texas,” Babin last year introduced H.R. 3314, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act. The measure would “put a pause on the U.N.-led refugee resettlement program so that Congress can rein in this burdensome program,” the congressman said.
Babin’s bill has 84 co-sponsors, including 15 other Texas lawmakers. All 84 are Republicans.
In another border-related health move, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday requested $11 million from the CDC to assist the fight against the Zika virus, entering the country from Central and South America. Read Abbott’s letter here.
Just great.
Not a peep from the media of course not, they live in their mansions surrounded with armed guards and walls and dont have to worry about mingling around with these pieces of filth who bring us disease and Jihadism
The GOAL of the WHite Mosque and the insane EXEMPT
and treasonous GOP is incurable tuberculosis and
other diseases in EVERY elementary school by
Quartering.
The original colonists would have ....
This is just the ones with TB. There are dozens of other diseases that in the US were non-existent, very rare, or had been eradicated that these aliens are bringing here since they’re avoiding the usual health checks for lawful immigrants.
And criminal checks, too.
Get em out! (don’t hurt em)
Well, the governors of the states can roll over to Obama, or they can do the girlie-man thing with the courts, or they can draw a line, as THEIR state law REQUIRES, and stop all that. It is their choice. What is Obama going to do? Arrest them?
Here in Louisiana, Huey P. Long would have arrested the feds bringing in the refugees and sent the refugees back home.
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