A flood of COVID-positive illegal immigrants is overwhelming hospital systems along the Texas border.
Doctor Ivonne Lopez-Lopez, the Medical Director of the McAllen Medical Center says 80 percent of her COVID patients are illegal immigrants.
“We’re working extra shifts. We are planning to get help soon from the state because the cases are increasing very much,” Lopez told Fox News in a recent TV interview.
Since mid-February, border officials have released more than 7,000 COVID-positive migrants into McAllen. Ira Mehlman, with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is not surprised the situation is getting worse.
“This was an obvious consequence of leaving that border wide open that we were going to find lots of people coming across further spreading a disease that we are struggling to control right now,” Mehlman said.
The Biden administration is downplaying concerns of a COVID surge along the border. However, Mehlman says the surge comes at a great cost.
“That cost includes the health and safety of the American public, the soundness of our economy,” he explained. “All of those things seem to take a backseat to the political priority of having that border wide open.”
Mehlman says the U.S. is likely to face as serious of a pandemic as a year ago due to the administration largely ignoring the border crisis.