Washington, D.C. (August 14, 2020) – The Center for Immigration Studies reports that the Trump White House and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have mounted two major initiatives to stop Mexico’s export of Covid-19.
- A surge operation along the Texas border got underway on Thursday to catch and remove more illegal immigrants crossing who are infected with Covid-19 and prevent them from reaching the nation’s interior.
- A Trump draft proposal, leaked to the New York Times, revealed the White House is considering allowing border inspections agents to temporarily bar Mexican legal residents of the United States, and also U.S. citizens living in Mexico, if an official “reasonably believes that the individual either may have been exposed to or is infected with the communicable disease.”
Todd Bensman, the Center’s senior national security fellow, has been reporting on the Covid cases coming across the border since early June. He reported earlier this week that “The evidence is now clear and convincing that significant numbers of ill Covid-19 patients in Mexico are legally and illegally crossing the southern border for treatment in U.S. hospitals and contributing to spikes in hospitalizations and deaths in the border states.” Senior government officials, the media, and pandemic experts have avoided addressing this publicly for weeks.
Read the article: https://cis.org/Bensman/CBP-Launches-Major-Operation-Texas-Catch-CovidSickened-Illegal-Immigrants-Entering-Mexico
One CBP official said the surge operation would include the re-deployments of more than 400 and possibly as many as 1,000 CBP agents from the nation’s interior, who would be committed to apprehending illegal migrants who would otherwise evade Border Patrol for the purpose of catching and returning to Mexico those who otherwise would go on to infect interior Latino populations as well as others in the interior. The operation will involve two 30-day deployments in the two Texas sectors where hospitals have been overwhelmed with seriously ill Covid patients since June.
The leaked White House Memo highlights the severity of Mexico’s Covid outbreak and a concern for key exemptions. An accumulation of evidence – in media reporting, state hospitalization data, and public statements by hospital administrators, doctors, nurses, and patients – shows that probably many more ill Mexicans with permanent legal residence in the United States, dual citizenship, border-crossing cards and various visas, as well as American expatriates, have been fleeing to American hospitals since at least mid-May. These individuals are exempt from the March 20 border closure rules and have contributed to hospitalization spikes in California, Arizona, and Texas.
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