Approximately 25% of migrants dropped off in just one Texas town tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Bill Reagan, director of Loaves and Fishes, the homeless shelter in Harlingen Texas where Border Patrol agents are releasing the illegal aliens through the disastrous process of ‘catch and release.’
According to the Washington Times, “Mr. Reagan told a Harlingen City Commission meeting last week that the migrants are processed at the border and then bused to his facility, so they may have contracted COVID-19 but show no signs of infection. Besides, he said, there is not much the city can do. The first group that came through had a 25% positivity test rate;” he said before concluding:
We can’t quarantine them. Even though they test positive, they’re going to leave the next day. They’re going to get on the bus or the airplane, and they’re gone.
By the time you are reading this, that first group of migrants is now likely spread out across the country - and this fact is starting to challenge the Biden Administration’s continual assurance that its border policies are not a new vector for the virus.
Harlingen is one of several cities in the Rio Grande Vally of Texas. All of them are grappling with a surge of aliens nabbed by agents and then released into their communities, reports the Washington Times.
Just east of Harlingen stands Brownsville, where Fox News reported last week that the city is testing aliens who show up at the bus station. In Brownsville, over 100 recently released illegal aliens tested positive for the virus before setting off into the U.S. interior.
Similarly, just west of Harlingen stands McAllen, Texas, which has contracted with the local Catholic Charities branch to handle testing of aliens haphazardly released into their community. However, this has set up a substantial roadblock to the transparency of the crisis. City officials, who as elected officeholders have the incentive to be as transparent as possible, now refer questions to the non-profits, who then refuse to provide any answers as to what is going on.
Also, on the issue of transparency and accountability, the Washington Times reported on the mixed signals leaking from all sides of the Biden Administration:
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas initially told reporters that migrants being released were “as a matter of process” turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he said conducted testing.
By the middle of last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had a different take. She said federal agencies were releasing migrants without testing but state and local officials and nongovernmental organizations were “stepping in” to do it.
However, during the City Commission meeting, Bill Reagan insisted that the shelter he runs is doing the testing, but it doesn’t mean much. He added:
The testing is really almost useless because these folks have been in detention together, they’ve been in close quarters under difficult circumstances for weeks sometimes, they’ve been brought together on the bus,” he said. “Some folks who test negative may have recently been exposed.
Besides, most are getting on buses within a day.
I don’t think they’ve been tested before, and I don’t think the asylum seekers coming to us have a real grasp on what COVID is. I think their priority has been getting to the United States.
Just two states over, “local officials in Arizona told The Washington Times that the cities and counties didn’t have the capacity to test the migrants for COVID-19 or house them, and nonprofit organizations were either not equipped or also lacked that capacity.”
Homeland Security has not provided numbers for migrants who are caught and released, though officials on the border say it amounts to hundreds a day.
For the complete story, please visit the Washington Times.
