8/29/2018 - Walter E. Williams Townhall.com
The Immigration and
Nationality Act mandates that all immigrants and refugees undergo a medical
screening examination to determine whether they have an inadmissible health
condition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has technical
instructions for medical examination of prospective immigrants in their home
countries before they are permitted to enter the U.S. They are screened for
communicable and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis,
polio, measles, mumps and HIV. They are also tested for syphilis, gonorrhea and
other sexually transmitted diseases. The CDC also has medical screening
guidelines for refugees. These screenings are usually performed 30 to 90 days
after refugees arrive in the United States.
But what about people
who enter our country illegally? The CDC specifically cites the possibility of
the cross-border movement of HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies,
hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis and syphilis. Chris Cabrera,
a Border Patrol agent in South Texas, warned: "What's coming over into the
U.S. could harm everyone. We are starting to see scabies, chickenpox,
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and different
viruses." Some of the youngsters illegally entering our country are known
to be carrying lice and suffering from various illnesses. Because there have been
no medical examinations of undocumented immigrants, we have no idea how many
are carrying infectious diseases that might endanger American children when
these immigrants enter schools across our nation.
According to the CDC,
in most industrialized countries, the number of cases of tuberculosis and the
number of deaths caused by TB steadily declined during the 100 years prior to
the mid-1980s. Since the '80s, immigrants have reversed this downward trend in
countries that have had substantial levels of immigration from areas where the
disease is prevalent. In 2002, the CDC said: "Today, the proportion of immigrants among
persons reported as having TB exceeds 50 percent in several European countries,
including Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. A
similar proportion has been predicted for the United States". The number
of active TB cases among American-born citizens declined from an estimated
17,725 in 1986 to 3,201 in 2015. That was an 80 percent drop. Data reported to
the National Tuberculosis Surveillance System show that the TB incidence among
foreign-born people in the United States (15.1 cases per 100,000) is
approximately 13 times the incidence among U.S.-born people (1.2 cases per
100,000). Those statistics refer to immigrants who are legally in the U.S.
There is no way for us to know the incidence of tuberculosis and other diseases
carried by those who are in our country illegally and hence not subject to
medical examination.
This public health
issue is ignored by all those Americans championing sanctuary cities. The
public health issue is also ignored by Americans clamoring for open borders,
and that includes many of my libertarian friends. By the way, in the late 19th
century and early 20th century, when masses of European immigrants were trying
to enter our country, those with dangerous diseases were turned back from Ellis
Island. Americans hadn't "progressed" to the point of thinking that
anyone in the world has a legal right to live in America. Neither did they
think that it was cruel or racist to take measures to prevent our fellow
Americans from catching diseases from foreigners.
But aside from
diseases, there is the greater threat of welcoming to our shores people who
have utter contempt for Western values and want to import anti-Western values
to our country, such as genital mutilation, honor killings and the oppression
of women. Many libertarian types make the argument that we would benefit from
open borders when it comes to both people and goods. That vision ignores the
important fact that when we import, say, tomatoes from Mexico, as opposed to
people, to the U.S., they are not going to demand that we supply them with
welfare benefits.
The bottom line is that
we Americans have a right to decide who enters our country and under what
conditions. If we forgo that right, we cease to be a sovereign nation. But that
may not be important to some Americans.
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