Reports from the United States’ southern border continue to worsen as thousands of illegal, unaccompanied minors are flooding through from Mexico.
More than 52,000 children have entered the country illegally in recent months, many of them coming into the U.S. through South Texas. Former Zapata County Sheriff Gonzales, who now works as a consult with law enforcement agencies along the Texas border, says space is running out to house the children and adults that are coming across.
As feared, the flood of Central American children and adults has begun to spread disease into the U.S. Border patrol agents are reportedly getting sickened from the refugees.
Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says the unaccompanied child was recently hospitalized after being diagnosed with swine flu, or H1N1. Wolfe says officials believe this is an isolated incident but are closely monitoring all children at Lackland and other similar shelters the agency is operating around the country.
“That tells you that when you’ve got kids coming in from some of these countries where they don’t have great health systems, we gotta watch out,” says Cuellar. “I’ve talked to border patrol down in McAllen. They’ve seen TB; they’ve seen chicken pox; they’ve seen scabies. And according to Border Patrol, 4 or 5 of their agents have tested positive for those diseases.”
In the meantime, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will be traveling to South Texas to a makeshift refugee camp. But residents say she will be missing the real crisis — American citizens’ whose land is being overrun by illegal immigrants streaming over the border.
“I’ve had a 7-year-old little girl from El Salvador with her mother come to my front door just in dire need, lost, needing help,” says Linda Vickers, who owns a Ranch in Brooks County.Vickers says even though her ranch is about 60 miles north of the border, bands of illegal immigrants are still crossing onto her land by circumventing border patrol check points.Vickers goes onto speak about the things Pelosi might see.“On one hand, I have women and children and young people in distress — and then on the other hand, I’ve had a criminal element of gang members,” says Vickers.“Young men that have had multiple deportations and do not want to get caught. I’ve heard them tell border patrol as they’re loading them into their vehicle ‘That’s okay, Obama’s gonna let me go.’”
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