US Health Increasingly at Risk with Illegal Immigration Surge

With thousands of illegal immigrants flooding through the southern border of the United States each week, the health of American citizens is being placed at an increased risk.

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. By law, these exams are supposed to occur in the applicant’s home country prior to admission. In addition, a second screening is mandated once they arrive in the US. That’s not happening with those that enter the United States illegally. A recent report by CNN says that “More than 2,000 people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are being quarantined amid an outbreak of mumps and other diseases.”

The “other diseases” are not listed, which should be alarming. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) list tuberculosis as one of the most serious diseases that is arriving undetected. It can be easily spread by those crossing the southern US border that bypass a medical screening. Other communicable diseases of concern that may see an increase across the US in the future are syphilis, gonorrhea, leprosy, and an ever-changing list of current threats such as polio, smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, chicken pox, mumps, and influenza.

Illegal border crossers are not only a risk to our nation’s health. According to data obtained by from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by Breitbart, “more than $250 million in U.S. tax dollars goes towards providing medical, dental, and mental health care for illegal aliens and border crossers who are in ICE custody.” This figure does not include the other, and far greater costs, for those that have not yet been discovered in the US illegally and detained.