As Illegal Immigrants Stream across the Border, Health Concerns Rise

On Wednesday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, said, “The Biden administration’s border control disaster has turned every state into a border state, and we’re now seeing the strain … on local governments.” As experts are warning, this strain now goes far beyond a shortage of housing and jobs for the thousands crossing the border. In a recent development, health concerns are also on the rise.

“[O]ne of the underplayed concerns that I have as a physician [is] there are any number of infectious and communicable diseases that people can bring across the border with them,” Dr. Tim Durkee, an alderman on the Rockford, Illinois City Council, told Perkins. According to Durkee, some of these diseases could include polio, certain “forms of tuberculosis that are antibiotic resistant,” measles, and even “leprosy that still exists in different countries.”

These diseases potentially being brought into the U.S. pose a threat to “unsuspecting citizens,” he emphasized, especially the individuals who are unvaccinated. “[W]e have a certain population in the United States that … is not vaccinated for one reason or another,” Durkee pointed out. “Either they don’t want to be vaccinated or they just let it slide, and then they can fall victim to infectious diseases that people may come across.”

And to treat these people, “you just can’t print money,” Perkins added. “You’ve got to work within the budget that you have as a city.” Even so, states such as California have decided to use taxpayer dollars to fund health care for illegal immigrants — a decision that has stirred controversy.

California expanded their health insurance, Medi-Cal, to roughly 700,000 illegal immigrants aged 26 to 49. “They don’t even give veterans health insurance,” famous rapper and actor 50 Cent said in response. “I don’t understand this.” In Illinois, Durkee added, there are concerns that their schools and health institutions would be taxed, and those “added costs [will] be difficult for us to bear,” he warned.

As illegal immigrants continue to flood into the U.S., Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has put the blame on anything but the Biden administration.

In a recent interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Mayorkas credited “the greatest number of displaced people … across the globe” to “the effects of climate change, poverty,” and “increasing level[s] of authoritarianism.” Additionally, he stated that, “fundamentally, Congress must fix the broken immigration system.” Mayorkas went on to call out Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) for “a remarkable failure of governance.”

As the border crisis steadily worsens, and the blame game continues from all angles, House Republicans are set to start impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas on January 10. But despite what comes of the impeachment, Perkins concluded, “[I]t looks like this is [all] going to continue unless the Biden administration does something at the southern border.”