U.S. borders have been flooded with thousands of foreign nationals arriving from countries affected by the coronavirus originating in China.
While the United States is trying to stop the coronavirus spread, with leading medical experts blaming international travel and migration for much of the outbreak, nearly 151,000 border crossers and illegal aliens have been caught on the U.S.-Mexico border. since October 2019 from 72 affected countries. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data is revealed.
Since October, for example, 1,657 Chinese nationals have been captured on the southern border. About 341 of these Chinese nationals attempted to enter the United States illegally in recent months.
DHS data show that Chinese nationals continue to reach the southern border, with about six abducted for the past two days. There are now about 81,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in China and 3,180 deaths.
“We have a unique public health threat to individuals who illegally cross the border, threatening migrants, law enforcement, front-line staff and the American public,” A senior DHS official told Breitbart News.
“It only took one infected individual to affect the migrant community detained at DHS facilities,” the official said. “Without proper precautions, which can only happen with an orderly and legal migration, the virus threatens to spread rapidly. Any arrest of (remaining in Mexico) will aggravate this threat.”
Brazil, where 151 coronavirus cases are confirmed, has had about 6,400 of its nationals crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since October. Similarly, eight Iranian nationals, 12 Italian nationals, 346 Russian nationals, 160 Romanian nationals, 204 Vietnamese, 827 Indian nationals, and 1,045 Cameroonians – countries that have a combined coronavirus population of about 30,000 and 1,781 deaths.
In the southern U.S., Mexico now has 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and since October, nearly 110,000 Mexican nationals have flooded the southern border. All confirmed coronavirus cases in Mexico include a person who has recently traveled abroad or has been in close contact with a person who has recently traveled abroad.
Also, about 21,000 Honduran nationals have reached the U.S. border with Mexico in the last five months, as two cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the country.
El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have not yet confirmed a coronavirus case, but their nationals have traveled through coronavirus-affected Mexico to illegally head to the US.
Since October, some 44,370 nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have arrived at the southern border for the first time traveling through Mexico, affected by coronavirus.
A DHS official told Breitbart News that the volume of migrants, especially from countries with confirmed coronavirus infections, along with crowded federal detention facilities and a strain of public health resources posed a risk at try to prevent further spread of the virus.
Despite the risk, Trump said last week that his administration did not particularly review plans to close the country’s scariest border.
Already, Trump has implemented travel bans in China, Iran and most of Europe by targeting medical experts who say that European countries helped spread the coronavirus to about 30 states in the United States. There are now 1,875 confirmed coronavirus cases in the US and 41 deaths.
John Binder is a Breitbart News reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.