by Debra Heine
Since January 25, 108 illegal immigrants released into Texas by Border Patrol have reportedly tested positive for Covid-19. According to a spokesperson for Brownsville, a town on the Texas border, that number represents 6.3 percent of those who have taken the test. The migrants are tested at the city’s main bus station, where they are being released by the Border Patrol.
According to NBC News, several of the illegal immigrants “plan to travel to dozens of cities throughout the country” despite testing positive for the coronavirus.
A Brownsville official told Noticias Telemundo Investiga that it does not have the authority to prevent those who test positive from traveling elsewhere in the U.S., but are advising them to voluntarily quarantine, and follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and socially distance.
Eva Orellana, 29, who is from Honduras and who tested positive, said she was going to take the bus to North Carolina with her 3-year-old daughter. “On the way, we were wearing a mask all the time, gel, washing our hands,” she said. “Really, I don’t feel anything.”
Those who tested positive and spoke to Telemundo did not have any document indicating their Covid-19 test results; they said they were simply told by the station workers after taking the test.
They said the station workers told them to wait in a different waiting area than the rest of the migrant families, but they still had freedom to move, a few meters from the rest.
A 35-year-old woman from Honduras who also tested positive for Covid, told Noticias Telemundo Investiga that she planned to travel by bus to Houston.
“Right now we were tested for Covid and they separated about eight of us because we were positive,” she said. “We are waiting right now.”
“The City of Brownsville continues to follow all guidelines provided by the CDC and DSHS for Covid-19. The migrants who test positive at the B-Metro facility are advised of quarantine procedures and are asked to socially distance,” Felipe Romero, Brownsville’s communications and marketing director, said in an emailed statement. DSHS is the Texas Department of State Health Services.
According to Fox News, the Biden White House is aware that asylum-seekers were being allowed to travel throughout the United States despite testing positive for the coronavirus.
The Biden administration’s “catch and release” policy at the border is just one of many reversals of Trump-era border security policies.
Steven Miller, formerly the senior advisor for policy in the Trump White House, lamented on Fox News Tuesday night that all of Trump’s sensible immigration policies have already been scuttled by Biden’s team.
Miller told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the Trump administration put into place “a series of tools”—remain in Mexico, asylum deals with Central America, asylum reforms to help with asylum fraud, public health measures, and an end to catch and release, to successfully secure the border.
“All of those measures [were] painstakingly implemented so at the time we left, the border was under control, illegal immigrants were safely and humanely returned home, and the surge of minors and families had stopped,” Miller said. “In four weeks time, all of that has been undone.”
The former White House official stressed that his concern wasn’t President Trump’s legacy, but the tens of thousands of people who are getting hurt every day by Biden’s policies every day.
According to Fox Business, the Biden administration locked down a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Twitter account on Tuesday, halting all public safety alerts on illegal migrants in the U.S.
The account, created in 2013 and bolstered under the Trump administration, was used to post details about known “fugitives,” including their name, nationality, criminal history and the U.S. jurisdiction where they were released.
“It seems the Biden Admin locked [ICE Alerts] because if you were to report the location of one of these dangerous aliens to ICE, it would become too obvious that these assaulters, drug dealers, thieves, and drunk drivers are now allowed to go free under Biden’s policies,” former senior advisor to ICE, Jon Feere, wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
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Debra Heine reports for American Greatness.
