The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Migrants aren’t being tested on arrival in U.S.
Public health officials, shelter operators warn of potential COVID-19 spread.
As the United States vaccinates larger numbers of people and several states begin to reopen after seeing lower infection rates, the failure of U.S. authorities to test adult migrants for the coronavirus in jam-packed border processing centers is creating a potential for new transmissions, public health officials and shelter operators warn, even among migrants who may have arrived healthy at America’s door.
What’s happening
More than 170,000 migrants crossed the border in March — many coming from countries still grappling with high infection rates — but the Border Patrol is conducting no testing for the coronavirus during the several days the newly arrived migrants are in U.S. custody except in cases where migrants show obvious symptoms.
The government says it has insufficient time and space to test migrants upon their arrival. So while migrants get a basic health screening, testing is being postponed until their release to local community groups, cities and counties, usually after the new arrivals have spent days confined in tight spaces with scores of strangers, often sleeping shoulder to shoulder on mats on the floor.
Unaccompanied children are being tested, but only after they have spent around three days in custody, just before being loaded onto buses or planes for transport to government-run shelters.
Why it matters
U.S. officials say the challenges to testing all the new arrivals when they are first apprehended are insurmountable. There have been no instances of mass spread at U.S. border facilities, and overall numbers of cases are relatively low, according to the Department of Homeland Security. About 5% of all single adults and families tested after their release since March showed a positive result, according to the agency, while among the thousands of unaccompanied minors now in custody, the rate has been about 12%.
But local officials and shelter operators said they feared the actual number of infections could be much higher.
“In theory, those who test positive could have infected other people before arriving here,” said Diego Piña Lopez, the program manager at Casa Alitas, a respite center for migrants in Tucson, Arizona. Staff members there have been performing rapid coronavirus tests on dozens of migrant families each day after their release by the Border Patrol.
Migrants who have a positive result are transferred to a shelter operated by the city. Others spend a night or two at the respite center and then board planes or buses to their destinations around the United States.
What it means
Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, said “operational limitations” have precluded doing virus testing “on the front end,” but that medical teams are working intensely with nonprofit groups and local officials to make sure migrants are screened immediately and tested later, a strategy that he said was starting to show results with fewer people getting sick.
“At the earliest possible moment we can do something about it, we test,” he said in an interview. “And so there are limitations. The question that any public health operator has to ask is, ‘What is the earliest point you can effect change?’ ”