Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks has joined other Republican lawmakers calling on Dr. Anthony Fauci to use his influence to stop “a dangerous new foreign pipeline for COVID-19” along America’s Mexican border.
The March 12 letter from Brooks and other lawmakers also seeks action from the director of the National Institutes for Health saying the Biden administration has resumed “the dangerous immigration policy of ‘catch and release’” along the border.
“Hundreds of illegal immigrants” have been released at the border “on nothing more than a promise to appear at a future hearing,” the letter said. The releases are happening with no testing or quarantine measures “despite the face that Mexico now has the highest per capita COVID fatality rate in Latin America,” the letter said.
The Biden administration has eased the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to stay south of the border while their cases moved through the system. Since then, the number of children and adults at the border seeking entrance has surged.
The letter also asks Fauci if he has visited the border to review health procedures being used there to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The administration still is turning back almost all single adults, who comprise the majority of border-crossers, under a public health order issued by the Trump administration at the start of the pandemic. Most American border states also have mandatory mask orders to lessen the spread of COVID-19, but Texas and Arizona do not. Both have Republican governors.
There are three types of immigrants entering in South Texas, according to border authorities: People who were in Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program who were waiting for immigration court dates and must test negative, children who are unaccompanied by a parent or guardian who are referred to U.S. Health and Human Services, and migrant parents with young children that the Border Patrol releases quickly. Some cities are getting hundreds of migrant families daily.
Two HHS contractors in Texas who were not authorized to speak to the media told The Associated Press the positivity rates for children are generally 8% or below, which is lower than the current statewide test rate. Children who test positive are isolated until they are clear of the virus.
The infection rates for all arriving immigrants are lower than for Texas as a whole, local officials and nonprofit groups serving those families say.
In the border city of Brownsville, Mayor Trey Mendez said last week that about 6% of immigrants tested positive at the local bus station. In McAllen, Sister Norma Pimentel of the local Catholic Charities chapter said around one family in a group of 100 people typically tests positive and is directed to isolate in a local hotel.
Both Cameron and Hidalgo counties — where Brownsville and McAllen are located — currently have test positivity rates of about 10%.
Dr. Ivan Melendez, the health authority in Hidalgo County, said now about 10 people a day are dying there instead of 50. He criticized Abbott for lifting the mask mandate but said the arrival of migrants is also a concern.
“The reality of it is you cannot have an influx of thousands of people in your community during a pandemic,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a longtime border Democrat from Laredo, Texas, criticized the Biden administration for rolling back some Trump-era immigration policies too quickly and opening more holding facilities too slowly.
But Cuellar also criticized people “who try to invoke fear” about immigrants, particularly children.
“If you’re afraid of a little kid, a 7-year-old, then I think you fear your own shadow,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.