In the past two weeks, more than 100 illegal immigrants have tested positive for COVID-19 after crossing the border, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
The number of illegals who have the coronavirus has increased by 900% compared to the previous 14 months, CBP said. Right now, about 60% of the illegal immigrants who cross into the Rio Grande section are testing positive, the agency added.
Several Republican lawmakers have urged public health officials to take the border crisis more seriously, calling it “a dangerous new foreign pipeline for COVID-19” in a recent letter.
“Hundreds of illegal immigrants” have been released at the border “on nothing more than a promise to appear at a future hearing,” the letter said.
The releases are happening with no testing or quarantine measures “despite the fact that Mexico now has the highest per capita COVID fatality rate in Latin America,” the letter said.
Several Texas sheriffs and border agents also recently sued the Biden administration over the president’s decision to reinstate catch-and-release, which they said endangers lives in several ways.
“The ICE officers involved in this case are absolutely astounded at what their superiors are asking them to do: releasing people charged with rape of a child, releasing people charged with dealing drugs and resisting arrest,” Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
Border officials have encountered a record number of illegal immigrants this year. Since January, more than 930,000 illegals have been detained—and more than 180,000 came in May alone.
