August 5, 2021
McAllen, Texas, declares disaster after 7,000 COVID-infected illegals pour into city
By Monica Showalter
The chaos at the border has risen to "disaster" levels in McAllen, Texas, where COVID-infected migrants are pouring in and the city can't stop them. So much for Kamala Harris's migration "root cause" solution, with her visits to showcase schools in Guatemala. And so much for Joe Biden doing his job as president, as Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis noted yesterday.
According to Border Report:
McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — The South Texas border city of McAllen this week put up several tents to house an overflow of migrants with COVID-19 who have been released by federal authorities and have nowhere else to go. But the new tents drew such outcry from residents that late Wednesday city officials announced the facility was being moved.
Overnight Wednesday, six tents had been put up with a capacity to hold 260 migrants, McAllen City Manager Roel “Roy” Rodriguez told Border Report.
Can We Stop with the ‘Indigenous’ Bit Already?
According to the city of McAllen, since mid-February of 2021, there have been over 7,000 confirmed COVID-19 positive immigrants released into the City of McAllen by CBP, including over 1,500 new cases in the past seven days.
On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” McAllen, TX Mayor Javier Villalobos (R) stated that the migrant situation is “getting horrible,” hotels are filling up, and migrants can’t be held “in one place unless they want to be.”
Villalobos said the situation is “getting horrible, and we do need some help.”
There's more, according to Texas news outlet Valley Central:
Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez told ValleyCentral in a previous interview that there is a nursing shortage and keeping up with COVID-19 hospitalization of residents has not been easy. In addition, the influx in asylum seekers testing positive for COVID-19 is also tipping the scale.
“But now we’re seeing that they’re coming in with a high infection for COVID, and there’s no room for them anymore,” said Cortez.
Cortez also told ValleyCentral the infection rate for migrants rose to a shocking 16%, doubling the numbers from last time.
Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley says it cannot keep up with the intake and has had to turn people away. They've asked the Border Patrol to stop sending them migrants yet the buses are still coming. Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs the place, says her Humanitarian Respite Center has already taken in 1,100 uninfected migrants, and are housing another 1,000 infected migrants in hotels around the Rio Grande Valley:
Pimentel told Border Report that on Monday afternoon there were 1,100 migrants at the Respite Center when it closed its doors to new arrivals. She said there are about 1,000 migrants who are currently isolated in eight to 10 area hotels within a 40-mile distance in the Rio Grande Valley and include locations in Weslaco, Edinburg, Mission and La Joya.MM
Which is quite an emergency, and quite newsworthy, given that maskless COVID-infected illegals have been caught walking around McAllen, coughing and sneezing on locals in at least one restaurant despite having NGO-provided food at their hotel. Pimentel, without apology to the community, says that the situation "has been corrected." While that's probably true that there's a security guard around, assuming they could find one to hire, it's also unknown if that's now the case, given the lack of news followups.
As to whether this is an efficient operation, with infected migrants neatly separated from uninfected ones, in these triage "disaster" conditions, that's an open question, too, and there have been scattered reports of infected illegals fanning out around the country to spread COVID.
As for Biden himself, he ought to recognize the disaster, if for nothing else his party's political prospects, but he doesn't. The McAllen citizens for the first time in decades elected a Republican mayor. They went 58-40 for Biden in the 2020 election. And yes, they are virtually all Latino.
Four very bad responses to the matter are evident from the Biden administration instead:
One, they've refused to shut the border, despite the COVID surging on in along with the illegal aliens. They're not even heeding the still-in-place Title 42, which permits the feds to send back illegal border crossers on COVID concerns.
Two, they've refused to declare an emergency, so that federal disaster funds can be released. The McAllen 'disaster' declaration, complete with FEMA-style tents, is local.
Three, they've covered up the migrant surge itself, as I wrote here, literally lying about how bad it is to people on the outside.
Four, they've refused to give information to communities, not just in McAllen, but all across the country where migrants are secretly being bused and flown in.
Five, they've ignored even Democrat leaders who've asked for "a pause," such as is seen in this report from Independent News:
Both [Hidalgo County Judge Richard] Cortez and McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos said they have not heard “a single word” from anyone in the Biden administration. Cortez, like Democratic Congressman Henry Cueller, has called on the Biden administration to “pause” its open border policy. Neither have received a response.
If that's not an impeachable dereliction of duty of the president of the United States, to protect the country, and faithfully uphold its laws -- what is? He doesn't even respect Democrats on this, let alone the country. He's hellbent on having an open border and that's a crime against U.S. sovereignty.
More at source:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/
