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.
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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” (http://tinyurl.com/yca3y3zs).
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.
Walter
E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George
Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
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