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The international spread of the SARSCoV2 virus that causes the disease COVID-19 has prompted many governments to close their borders. Immigration policy plays an important rolein limiting the international spread of contagious diseases.

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, several commentators were concerned that immigrants especially illegal immigrants were spreading serious diseases in the United States. This blog post is the first in aseries to answer the question of whether immigrants spread serious notifiable diseases other than COVID-19in the United States. This post focuses on all pooled notifiable diseases for which there are vaccination requirements to enter the United States.

Methods

This post tests the correlation between the incidence of notifiable diseases and immigrant population shares on the state level for the 20102018 period. We use annual, statelevel data on notifiable disease cases from the CDCs National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS), which reports the number of nationally notifiable infectious diseases and conditions by state and year. Anotifiable disease is one where the CDC states that regular, frequent, and timely information regarding individual cases is considered necessary for the prevention and control of the disease.

Numerous diseases are reported to the CDC, but this post focuses on diseases that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and CDC require vaccination for prior to immigration. USCIS requires vaccination for mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria toxoids, pertussis, haemophilius influenza type B, and hepatitis B. The CDC requires vaccination for hepatitis B, varicella, seasonal influenza, pneumococcal pneumonia, rotavirus, hepatitis A, and meningococcal disease.

Data for the foreignborn population on the statelevel comes from the American Community Survey (ACS) provided by IPUMS. From the raw ACS microdata, we can identify immigrants by their nativity, citizenship status, and year of arrival. Afurther strength of the ACS microdata is that we can apply statistical techniques to identify likely illegal immigrants from observed characteristics in the data. Specifically, we use the residual technique of Christian Gunadi to identify illegal immigrants.

Results

To test whether states with higher immigrant shares experience higher rates of notifiable disease, we run atwoway fixed effects regression to estimate the correlation between the rate of disease per 100,000 population and the share of immigrants in astate. The regressions use state and year fixed effects and the standard errors are clustered at the state level.

Table 1shows the results of the regressions. They are all statistically insignificant except a1 percent increase in the share of astates legal immigrant population is correlated with 4.2 fewer cases of disease per 100,000 state residents, which is significant at the 5percent level. There is no relationship between the share of astates population that is foreignborn and the rate of disease per 100,000 residents. There is also no relationship between the illegal immigrant share of astates population and the rate of disease per 100,000 residents.

Figure 1shows the lack of arelationship between the immigrant share of the population and the incidence of these diseases on the state level. Figure 2shows no relationship between the illegal immigrant share of state populations and the incidence of these reportable diseases.

Go here to read the rest:
No Relationship Between Notifiable Diseases and Immigrant Populations - Cato Institute

Immigrants with Social Security numbers will be given $1,200 checks as long as they fall below the $75,000 income threshold set in the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed last week.

The problem is, that doesnt represent a lot of working immigrants in the United States.

Up until about a month ago, Rosana Araujo made between $1,500 and $2,000 a month cleaning houses in Miami. Thats no longer the case.

They canceled all my jobs, and now I dont have money to pay the rent, I dont have money to pay the electricity bill, she said in Spanish.

Araujo said she pays taxes on all her earnings, but she doesnt have a Social Security number. That means even if shes paying into the system, shes not eligible for any public benefits. Which means no COVID-19 check from the government. On top of that, shes worried about getting sick.

Im really scared because if I get sick, I dont have health insurance, she said.

The Trump administration has told immigrants that their status would not prohibit them from accessing any COVID-19-related health care.

But Sandra Feist, an immigration attorney in Minneapolis, said many of her clients arent buying it. Another uncertainty: Many immigrants say theyre getting a lot of mixed messages about the pandemic from their employers, particularly in agriculture. Stay-at-home orders in California and elsewhere have exempted farmworkers.

Homeland Security says that youre an essential worker, and yet were not making sure that theyre staying safe, Feist said.

And its not just undocumented people who could be left out.

If youre a U.S. citizen with a Social Security number but on your tax return youve got a spouse or a kid and theyre undocumented, then nobody in that household is going to get a check, said Doug Rand, who worked on immigration policy in the Obama White House as assistant director for entrepreneurship and is now the co-founder of Boundless Immigration, a technology company that helps immigrants obtain green cards and citizenship.

Julia Gelatt at the Migration Policy Institute doesnt think thats a mistake.

I assume that the logic is that the federal government didnt want payments to be going to unauthorized immigrants in the United States, she said.

She said this administration is nothing if not consistent with its immigration policy. President Donald Trump has maintained for years that illegal immigrants are a strain on the social safety net.

Undocumented folks paid more than $27 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2017, according to New American Economy. Legal immigrants contributed even more, almost $380 billion.

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For more than 150 years, the United States and Canada have shared what is commonly called the longest undefended border in the world. And yet in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, reports emerged that the United States was intending to place military troops near the border as part of Washingtons plan to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said such a move would be a mistake. After several days of confusion, Trudeau announced the U.S. had, at least temporarily, backed off on any plans to send troops in response to fears that infected people could illegally cross the border.

Whats behind this threat by the United States to militarize its northern border? For the answer, look to Americas southern border.

Leaked documents revealed that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had requested the Department of Defense deploy more than 1,500 troops to both the southern and northern borders to support border enforcement during the coronavirus pandemic.

Specifically, CBP had requested 1,000 personnel on the northern border and 540 personnel on the southern border. The 540 personnel would be added to the 5,200 troops already present at the U.S.-Mexico border that followed President Donald Trumps declaration of a national emergency over undocumented immigration in early 2019.

The leaked memo referred to illegal entries having the potential to spread infectious disease. The memo did not clearly explain how these troops were going to be used only that they will not conduct civilian law enforcement activities. The conditions of the use of force were also unclear.

Read more: Keep on trucking: Trucks must keep moving across Canada-U.S. border amid coronavirus

Canada and the United States had already agreed to close their land border to non-essential travel as a way to stop the spread of COVID-19. That decision did not mean the border would be entirely closed the flow of goods by land was vital for both economies and would not be stopped. Cross-border commutes related to grocery shopping, studies and work were still allowed as well.

Canadas diplomatic response to the American attempt to militarize its northern border, generally polite but at times tense, is not surprising given the asymmetrical Canada-U.S. relationship.

In 1969, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau famously said that living next to the United States was in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly or temperate the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.

Because of this structural asymmetry, Canada-U.S. relations dramatically changed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Despite Canadian efforts to meet U.S. security demands against terrorism, Paul Cellucci, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, bluntly stated in 2003 that security trumps trade.

And yet both national economies are deeply interdependent. In the early 2000s, 87 per cent of Canadas trade went to the U.S. and about one-quarter of Americas trade came to Canada. In 2018, U.S. exports to Canada accounted for 18 per cent of its overall exports, totalling US$363.8 billion, while Canadas exports to the U.S. had a partner share of 75 per cent, totalling US$337 billion.

Several Canada-U.S. cross-border regions are integrated (infrastructures, economies, tourism, etc.), but U.S. prevalence of national security has dominated the border agenda since 2001.

The metaphor of the Mexicanization of the U.S.-Canada border was used to reflect the primacy of this security agenda on both Mexican and Canadian borders.

The traditional U.S. security focus on drug and illegal immigration on the southern border was renewed after 2001 but terrorism and weapons of mass destruction also became one of the key national security priorities, which also applied to the northern border.

In this new context, U.S. border workers contributed to make both borders more uniform: CBP officials who are trained and on duty on the Mexican border later move to the Canadian border. They bring with them the corporate culture of CBP from the southern border values, beliefs and behaviours tainted with U.S.-Mexico border challenges.

In parallel, a longstanding collaboration between CBP and the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) exists. But it is essentially focused on U.S border monitoring and law enforcement, which is very similar to CBPs management of the southern border with (or without) Mexican authorities.

The Mexicanization of the northern border conveys the idea that the Canada-U.S. bilateral relationship is far from being unique or special. The U.S. increasingly sees Canada as just another border where national security threats emerge without distinction.

This imbalance between security and trade over the last two decades has contributed to numerous regional and local initiatives in order to demonstrate that security and trade imperatives can co-exist.

But the leaked CBP memo shows there is no longer a distinction between the southern and the northern borders. Both are seen as a threat to the safety and security of the United States.

It also shows the worlds longest undefended border is just a fig leaf an egalitarian symbol in order to hide the deep imbalance between the two countries.

See the rest here:
Why Trump tried to use the coronavirus crisis to 'Mexicanize' the U.S.-Canada border - The Conversation CA

Indeed, politics and world events were like quicksand beneath our feet. Abroad, the Syrian civil war raged, Iraq teetered, and the emergence of ISISthe successor to the al-Qaeda affiliate that took root in Iraq after our invasiondrew the United States back into a new counterterrorism campaign. At home, Republicans fixated on a toxic stew of issues with loose, if not specious, national-security connections: an insistence on declaring war against radical Islam, ceaseless investigations into Benghazi that spilled over into investigations of Hillary Clintons email practices, and demagoguing of refugee admissions and illegal immigration into the United States.

Donald Trump drafted on these dark currents as he launched his presidential campaign in 2015, tapping into Americas post-9/11 fears of a faceless other and the frustrations of Americans who had been promised great victories in Iraq and Afghanistan but found only quagmires. Instead of reckoning with the ways that we might have gotten the response to 9/11 wrong, Trump scapegoated enemies within: a black president, brown-skinned immigrants, Muslim refugees. Social media mainlined these fears into tens of millions of American households, and made us an easy mark for a Russian influence campaign.

In retrospect, the clearest harbinger from the Obama years of the future were now living in came in the fall of 2014. At a time when the American people were in a full-blown panic about ISIS, in the aftermath of the tragic beheading of four American hostages, we were confronted with the outbreak of an infectious disease, Ebola, that threatened to kill millions of people. By deploying the U.S. military to West Africa, recruiting dozens of countries to contribute health-care workers and equipment, and integrating Americas public-health and national-security infrastructure under unified direction, Obama was able to lead a coalition that stamped out the Ebola outbreak close to its source. It was a high-water mark of Obamas international leadership.

But the episode haunted Obama. He regularly told foreign visitors that fears of a pandemic kept him awake at night. By the time Obamas presidency ended, he had established a directorate on global-health security at the National Security Council, developed a playbook for a future administration to use to combat pandemics, and used a Cabinet-level homeland-security exercise with incoming Trump officials to put them through the decision-making process of responding to an outbreak. But the president coming into office was intent not on building on Obamas legacy, but on dismantling it.

In 2019, I taught a course at UCLA on presidential rhetoric and American foreign policy. One of the speeches I had my students read was Bushs address to Congress after 9/11, which still stands out as an exceptional piece of speechwriting. Just a couple of years younger than I was when I found those words so stirring, my students read the text as if it came from a different planet. Had the United States really made its entire national purpose a war against a group of terrorists? I asked them to list what they believed were the most pressing issues facing the country. Climate change topped the list. Economic inequality, student debt, structural racism, and a host of other issues filled it out. Not a single student mentioned terrorism. The generational appeal of Bernie Sandersso out of step with the Democratic establishment Id been a part ofwas obvious in that room.

Excerpt from:
The 9/11 Era Is Over - The Atlantic

People thinking this is a good time to try to get into the United States should think again.

The United States currently has the third highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world. Only China and Italy have more. The United States has more than 55,000 cases, withmore than700 deaths, and it is still in the initial phase of the epidemic.

In addition to the risk of getting sick, the U.S. is taking drastic actions that are particularly hard on foreign visitors and undocumented immigrants.

New authority for the CDC director

The focus on fighting the pandemic includes the border.

The Department of Health and Human Services just published an interim final rule effective immediately that authorizes the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to suspend the entry of aliens from foreign countries and places he designates.

The director can issue such a suspension when he determines that:

(The term place refers to any location specified by the director, including any carrier, and carriermeans a ship, aircraft, train, road vehicle, or other means of transportation.)

The United States has entered into agreements with Canada and Mexico to limit all non-essential travel across shared borders. Non-essential means travel that is considered tourism or is recreational in nature.

CBP will no longer detain illegal immigrants apprehended at the border in its holding facilities. It will return them to the country they entered from Canada or Mexico. If this is not possible, CBP will return them to their country of origin.

According to Mexicos foreign Secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico has only agreed to do this if the illegal crossers being returned are Mexicans or are from Central America.

CBP will take aliens apprehended after making an illegal entry to the nearest port of entry, fingerprint them, and then run their prints through government computer records. If they are not wanted by the police or a government agency, they will be released on the foreign side of the port of entry.

Of course, they can go to another section of the border after they are released and make another illegal entry, but 8 U.S.C. 1325 makes a second illegal entry a felony. The penalty, if convicted, is a fine and/or jail for up to two years.

Aliens in detention

8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(1)(A)(i) makes aliens who have a communicable disease of public health significance inadmissible. This means that aliens in detention who were apprehended at or near the border would have to be tested to see if they have COVID-19, and the ones who do could not be released unless their inadmissibility is waived under 8 U.S.C. 1182(g).

Exclusion grounds do not apply to aliens who are already in the United States.

The waiver is only available to aliens who have a specified relationship with a United States citizen, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, an alien who has been issued an immigrant visa, or they are self-petitioners under the Violence Against Women Act.

Risk of contracting COVID-19 in detention facilities

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and 14 other Democratic representatives sent a letter to Chad Wolf, the acting Secretary of DHS, in which they ask him, among other things, how he plans to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks at immigration detention facilities.

According to Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of the New York City Jail System, People with risk factors for serious complications and death cannot be protected inside jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers.

If the White House Coronavirus Guidelines for America were to be followed, older detainees would be kept in isolation and the rest would be held in groups of no more than 10 people; but it seems quite unlikely that DHS will follow these guidelines at its immigration detention centers, where space is already at a premium.

Very few aliens will be able to apply for asylum

Asylum is likely to be the only relief available to most undocumented aliens, but the eligibility provision,8 USC 1158(b)(1)(A), states that aliens who establish that they are eligible may be granted asylum. This means it is a matter of discretion, and immigration judges are not likely to grant discretionary relief that would permit aliens who have a deadly, contagious disease to remain in the United States.

In any case, few undocumented aliens will be able to get an asylum hearing.

Although most immigration courts have not been closed yet, they are only hearing detained cases. Hearings scheduled for aliens waiting in Mexico pursuant to theMigrant Protection Protocol have been cancelled.

The National Association of Immigration Judges, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association have asked the Department of Justice to close all of the immigration courts.

USCIS also accepts asylum applications, but USCIS has closed its offices.

Undocumented aliens would be wise to stay out of the United States.

Nolan Rappaportwas detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him on Twitter@NolanR1or athttps://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com.

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Undocumented aliens should stay away as COVID-19 rages in the US | TheHill - The Hill