Open borders allow deadly narcotics and criminal gangs to invade our country. But there’s a silent killer also making its way across the border: tuberculosis.
America’s woke public health authorities are more concerned with equity — redistributing health resources among racial groups — than with keeping a disease the U.S. once nearly eradicated from becoming a threat again.
Reported cases of TB shot up 34% from 2020 to 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and continue to rise. More than three-quarters of the cases are foreign-born people who picked up the disease in their home countries or traveling through countries with high TB rates. The TB incidence rate is 60 times higher in Haiti than in the U.S.
In New York City — the No. 1 destination for migrants — the incidence of TB is two and a half times the national average and still rising.
A staggering 89% of TB patients in the Big Apple are foreign-born. The Flushing/Clearview areas of Queens, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side of Manhattan are the neighborhoods most affected. The single largest national group with reported TB cases is from China, according to the city’s most recent Annual Tuberculosis Summary.
TB is no laughing matter. Globally it has just overtaken COVID-19 as the biggest infectious disease killer on earth. There is no effective vaccine for it, but most cases — except severely drug-resistant ones — can be treated with antibiotics, provided they’re taken daily without interruption for several months or longer. Not easy.
Western Europe, Scandinavia, and North America are all reporting rising TB rates as migrants from poorer countries — where TB is common — arrive. UK health authorities are alerting the public to the distinctive cough that comes with TB.
In Europe, public health authorities are engaged in a lively debate about how to affordably screen TB carriers and keep them from infecting the local population. Someone can carry latent TB for years, then suddenly, after resettling in a new country, develop active — and highly contagious — TB and spread it by coughing and sneezing.
But in the U.S., the mission-confused CDC is stressing health equity and rushing resources to the “disproportionately affected” groups. That’s fine, but how about also shielding Americans from the reemergence of a disease they’ve largely eliminated? In all the agency’s reports, not a word about what’s causing the surge in TB: an open border.
Immigrants who enter the country legally and apply for green cards are screened for TB with the interferon-gamma release assay test. Latent carriers are allowed into the country and referred to a local health department for follow-up treatment. It’s voluntary and hit-or-miss but better than no screening at all.
Migrants flooding across the border illegally or entering with Biden’s new parole app get no screening. Zip.
The CDC is MIA about screening and isolating the infected before they bring the disease to cities and towns across the country. The agency is forgetting its “Control and Prevention” mission.
Take the case of a Chinese migrant with active drug-resistant TB who crossed the border illegally in April. When her symptoms worsened and she was diagnosed on July 23 as “highly positive,” nothing was done to isolate her. Instead, she was shuffled between immigration processing facilities in California and Louisiana, exposing hundreds.
Now Louisiana is suing federal authorities to keep the exposed migrants detained until they are medically cleared. State Attorney General Liz Murrill warns about illegals who are “untested for diseases that can threaten the lives of Louisiana and American citizens.”
Thousands of unaccompanied minors with latent TB are being released into communities across the country, rather than being kept in Health and Human Services shelter facilities for the many months it would take to treat them with a course of antibiotics.
CDC data show a whopping 42% increase in the incidence of TB among children ages 5-14 in one year.
On Nov. 1, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) demanded that Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas erect precautions against a disease invasion, warning that TB “is rapidly spreading through the millions of unscreened illegal immigrants released into the interior of the United States.”
The number of reported cases this year — just under 10,000 — is small but the trend is worrisome. The U.S. waged a war against TB in the 20th century and won. Americans shouldn’t have to surrender to this disease now because of open borders.
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City at saveourcityny.org. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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Back in ’92 I got caught up in the meth epidemic and was sentenced to four years. One of the first things they did was check me for TB. When I asked why, they told me it was because of all the Mexicans in jail who weren’t vaccinated and ended up being carriers. When they opened the borders, I told everyone we were going to have an outbreak of TB and other diseases. Four years later and everyone thinks I’m a freaking genius and master prognosticator… If the corrections officers knew what to look for, our government did too. They didn’t care if people died, they just wanted the votes.
Close the damn border and 90+% of these crap and crude diseases will go away. For those who go through proper channels to get into the US confine and require a hardcore medical evaluation. Do it for your parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren.
Praise for Betsy McCaughey for bringing attention to this tuberculosis situation that is the. result of what is described in the second paragraph . With a public health system that is not well — due to misguided politics and misguided policies things like this tuberculosis problem will happen. So, a public health system that is responsible, operates intelligently and with a sense of integrity needs to be in place . This is something that should be a priority matter with the new administration
When I migrated to the U.S IN 1986,legally of course I by the laws at that time,had to provide the authorities with a certified X-ray proving that I was free of any communicable disease including TB.BIDEN,HARRIS and Mayorkes or whatever that useless buggers name is should be charged with criminal neglect
Tuberculosis is identifiable but what about the diseases and infections that we do not know.
Too bad if you point this out, you’re racist just like in 2012 when American children were dying from respiratory diseases carried from Latin America. We’re all expendable for the Open Border Policy!
Thanks to damn illegals alone
There is NO excuse for this and is VERY serious. My Mom died from drug- resistant TB in 1987. She was only 53. The doctors who tried to save her life were certain she was unknowingly exposed when Castro emptied his prisons and dumped them onto FL shores. I’m fairly confident that none of the Biden App flights dumped infected Haitians and others anywhere near his beach house.
The treason that resulted in this must be recognized and eliminated. The treason party did this ON PURPOSE. Remember this when Trump has to get rough with these monsters. Shed no tears for them. People need to be held accountable. Conservatives are the ones with compassion. Dont let that get in the way of basic justice.
Why not name them all? Why sugar-coat this? This administration, biden and harris, has thrown open our borders and allowed people with a plethora of parasites and infectious diseases into our Country. These illegal aliens come here, unvetted, and bring with them not only tuberculosis, but polio, smallpox, HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, measles, hepatitis A, shigellosis, Mycobacterium bovis infection, cholera, diphtheria, brucellosis, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers, severe acute respiratory syndromes (COVID-19, Middle East respiratory syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza), Hansen’s disease, plague, and communicable diseases posing a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) just to name a few. They bring with them diseases we’ve spent DECADES eradicating.
Every state, and any individuals who’ve contracted a disease listed above, should sue the ever-loving crap out of biden and harris. They have knowingly exposed our Country to this BS!!!
Why is there no description of what Tuberculosis is?
Biden is the 21st century’s new Typhoid-Mary! We’re probably, and only, at the beginning of all of the negative health issues brought on by the Biden/Harris open borders! As these diseases that were once eradicated begin to manifest and spread once again! Yet one more reason to hold these government criminals accountable for their actions!
As a retired Registered Nurse, I was well aware this was going to happen. I taught other nurses about TB. I predicted we would not only see a resurgence of TB, but other disease we had eradicated from this county,return. Shame on the CDC for not working more diligently and warning of this, They should all be replaced by more competent people. The top officials of the CDC are too worried about getting their kickbacks from Big Pharma and being woke to worry about what is affecting the American people. I am afraid we will see alot of drug resistant cases afflicting our citizens, as these people bringing it to this country have not had the health care system we have. God help us if that happens. It will take years to undo the damage.