EL PASO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2021) Few undocumented migrants are tested for the novel coronavirus after they are apprehended on the US southern border, National Border Patrol Council Vice President Chris Cabrera told Sputnik.
"Very, very few people get tested, for the simple fact that, one, we don't test them but if they're showing signs or symptoms, we'll send them to the hospital... and the hospital will test them," Cabrera, whose organization is the labor union that represents agents and support personnel assigned to the US Border Patrol, said.
Illegal crossings on the US southern border have hit a 20-year high under the Biden administration, with another record-setting month in July, which saw about 210,000 migrant encounters, according to preliminary data from Customers and Border Patrol (CBP). The total number of apprehensions in the region since October - the beginning of the US government's fiscal year - has now surpassed 1.3 million.
Cabrera works in the Rio Grande Valley sector in south Texas, which is the busiest region along the southern border.
Migrants who test positive are quarantined in a hotel or in some cases released into communities, Cabrera said.
"Infected migrants who are quarantined, they put them in a hotel somewhere but they don't notify anybody they're going to that hotel and they don't let us know so we can contact trace in case some of our agents may have come in contact with those folks to get tested," Cabrera said.
US media reported this week that the Biden administration is planning to offer COVID-19 vaccines to migrants in US custody on the southern border, where illegal crossings have been at the highest levels in more than 20 years.
US media reported, citing two Department of Homeland Security officials, that US health officials are struggling with soaring numbers of infections among migrants in Federal custody.
In mid-July, Axios reported that three in 10 migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers were declining to take the COVID vaccine when offered to them.
As of Tuesday, ICE data shows that 22,827 migrants have tested positive for COVID-19 while in custody and nine have died from the disease throughout the pandemic. At the moment, there are nearly 26,000 migrants in ICE detention centers, 1,120 of whom are infected with the disease, data shows.
