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Lying by Omission or It’s What They Don’t Say that Counts
No one will argue that the surge of illegal aliens at the southern border is a disaster. And in the face of Joe Biden’s trying to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine to American citizens, he’s giving the migrants a pass. Especially interesting to me was\ the presentation of the data (or the lack of transparent data) for assessing whether the influx of illegal aliens (who are not mandated to receive the vaccine) is a problem for the country. The Delta variant in particular is especially contagious. But regarding the unvaccinated migrants, no one seems to care.
So I have been parsing articles that ridicule or understate the spread of Covid-19 by migrants. And as long as we are flooded with migrants, I believe we should be very concerned about the spread of the disease. I’d like to share what I’m learning from those people who prefer to play down the presence of Covid-19 in the illegal alien population, the lack of testing, and the lack of vaccinations. Remember, these people are free to travel wherever they wish or are being sent all over the country without notifying governors in advance.
The illegals are demonstrating “vaccine hesitancy” when offered the vaccine, even though Covid-19 cases are surging in the detention centers:
Public health officials blamed the high number of cases on the vaccine hesitancy shown by the illegal immigrants.
Three medical experts wrote to the Biden administration to urge it to do more to vaccinate illegal immigrants, CNN reported last month.
The trio of doctors wrote the letter this spring, pointing out while the administration has made ‘great strides’ combating the pandemic across the country by using the vaccine, detention centers ‘continue to be a significant source of spread.’
‘Yet DHS has still not implemented a comprehensive plan to address the spread of COVID in immigration detention facilities,’ the letter said.
Another area of concern is that U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that 250,000 illegals have gotten away from enforcement officials. We have no way of knowing how many of them have the virus.
But given the information that has been reported, it’s fascinating to look at the ways that doctors, government officials, and others are trying to create a picture that suggests that illegals are not responsible for Covid-19 surges. Here is an example of how the influx of illegals is being characterized by Nicole Hallett, a professor and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School:
‘It is simply not true that the border is ‘wide open’ for ‘illegal aliens’ to cross,’ Hallett said. ‘Customs and Border Protection apprehend individuals attempting to cross between border checkpoints. The border is more secure than ever before. Fewer people are able to cross illegally without being apprehended than at any time in the past.’ [Italics are mine.]
She credits the rise in numbers to people trying to cross multiple times when they are turned back.
These were comments about illegals and the spread of Covid-19:
Experts told PolitiFact it’s fair for people to be concerned about the virus spreading among those living in tight quarters, such as migrant detention centers or prisons. They said some migrants may even be contributing to COVID-19 caseloads.
‘But given the extensive transmission already in the U.S., the immigration contribution is akin to pouring a bucket of water into a swimming pool,’ William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told PolitiFact for its check of DeSantis. ‘It’s hard to measure and pretty trivial.’
Experts say there’s no proof that immigrants are responsible for surges in cases across the country. In fact, it’s very difficult to track where they go after entering the U.S., said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. [Italics are mine.]
So… it’s hard to measure but it must be a trivial number. And since there’s no proof that immigrants are responsible for the surges, it must not be true.
These were the steps for determining if illegals had Covid-19:
Customs and Border Protection told Politifact in April that immigrants are screened for symptoms or risk factors associated with COVID-19. The agency said people presumed to be sick with COVID-19 are sent to local health systems for testing, diagnosis and treatment.
In other words, they aren’t tested. And most of us know that many people who have Covid-19 are asymptomatic.
“Experts” also confirmed that the illegals couldn’t be causing an increase of cases:
Experts pointed out that, if the theory about immigrants were correct, cities along the southern border would likely have disproportionately higher COVID rates than the rest of the country. But that’s not the case.
There’s ‘no increase in COVID-19 cases in areas (around the) border where migrants cross or where they go after crossing,” David Wohl, a physician who studies infectious diseases at UNC, told PolitiFact NC.
‘More obvious to (almost) any objective observer is that this is scapegoating and conflation of two different issues that have become very political,’ Wohl said.
Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, told PolitiFact the same thing in an interview for the recent check of DeSantis.
‘The pattern of distribution of coronavirus cases does not correspond in any way to immigrant movement,’ Caplan said.
Now this comment is a little more difficult to evaluate. But since we don’t know where the immigrants are going, because there is no method tracking where they choose to go or where they are being sent, we have no way of knowing whether they are adding to the number of cases or not. We don’t know if they are staying in cities near the border or if they are traveling to other parts of the country. So, in my assessment, these statements are meaningless.
A school board member in Charlotte, NC, stated that he believed that a surge in Covid-19 there was due to migrants. He had no evidence to back up that statement. At the same time, his claim was discounted in this way:
A caveat: the state doesn’t have demographic information for every positive COVID case. Sometimes the infected person doesn’t disclose their race or ethnicity. But it has ethnicity information for most cases, and the data show that non-Hispanic people have accounted for a majority of cases each week of the calendar year.
Rachel Graham, who teaches in the epidemiology department at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, says it’s possible the case numbers disproportionately represent people who have lifestyles that allow them to get tested for COVID-19 and take off work.
Still, Graham said there’s ‘no evidence” to support Sides’ claim, referring to it as political ‘flame-throwing.’ [Italics are mine.]
I’d gauge that there is “flame-throwing” from all sides.
Finally, don’t get your hopes up about Congress dealing with the issue of Covid-19 and illegal aliens:
During a hearing for the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) proposed an amendment that would require the vaccine for foreign nationals in the U.S. who are seeking to adjust their immigration status to remain in the U.S.
Every Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee opposed the vaccine mandate for immigrants while every Republican supported the measure.
Although we don’t know when it would have gone into effect since the budget reconciliation bill is stalled, the Democrats made their preference very clear when they refused to require the illegals to be vaccinated.
I guess we just have to live with the fact that illegal aliens have more rights under the Constitution than we have.
Welcome to the United States of Marxism.
Published in Domestic Policy
They can neither confirm nor deny, and so they deny.
” immigrants are screened for symptoms or risk factors associated with COVID-19″….to the extent that the screening involves asking questions, rather than objective measurements such as temperature, it seems likely that some significant % will simply lie to avoid the danger of being held or turned back.
Sounds about right. Let’s guess whether they’re Biden supporters . . .
Very good point, @davidfoster! Why would they admit to having Covid symptoms??
We have made a mess of keeping data on the virus from the beginning. Why would we start now and to what would we compare it? It makes sense to me that these immigrants would spread the latest virus, and probably other diseases, but it’s also possible that most of them have already had it. Who knows? As Scottish physician Malcolm Kendrick posted on his blog in explanation of his recent silence: The main reason for prolonged silence, and introspection, is that I am not sure I can find the truth. I do not know if it can be found anymore. Today I am unsure what represents a fact, and what has simply been made up. A sad and scary state of affairs.
@sandy, that is an excellent frightening quotation. And he’s right. Where do we find the truth anymore? Thanks.
I guess what almost bothers me most is not the covid data, but the insistence on clouding the truth or outright lying. As Sandy pointed out in her quote in Comment#5, who do we trust?
To be fair, this is always a problem in human affairs. It’s just that now it seems to be moreso than ever, and “moreso” matters. Eventually quantity becomes quality.
You may be cherry picking the “experts” you quote, and I understand a person can analyze data from anywhere, without hand-on access to the people represented by that data. But I note that all the quoted “experts” who insist that illegal border crossings are not presenting a Covid transmission problem are nowhere near the border, and thus not near the subject under discussion. Chicago Law School. American Immigration Council (Washington, D.C.). University of North Carolina. New York University Grossman School of Medicine. For them, people crossing the border illegally are an abstraction.
Rep. Darryl Issa represents an area relatively close to the border with Mexico, and thus an area affected rather directly by people coming across that border.
The media are well practiced in lying (and bias) by omission. They have been doing so for decades on a wide variety of subjects. As a lawyer, I am practiced at looking for what someone doesn’t say, so my antennae are always up. But that’s not how most people read or hear.
I didn’t “cherry pick” the experts, @fullsizetabby; the Politifact writer did. (When I have more than one quote from a publication, I don’t repeat the link, so most of those were from Politifact.) But you’ve made my point. We are supposed to trust a person who works for a publication with “fact” in its name. I think like so many in the media, he had an agenda, rather than a commitment to truth. And I don’t know if those people who didn’t live near the border couldn’t be legitimate; they could comment from anywhere, but we can’t believe them because they, too, have an agenda.
I also want to add that I have no idea who the “experts” were in the Politifact article–whether they were the people he’d quoted previously, or whether they were other “experts.”
Exactly. Anything that doesn’t fit the narrative is simply ignored by the media. So it didn’t happen.
Good questions, all.
I was thinking this afternoon that there’s an instant way to solve the southern border crisis: Republicans could go to the thousands of people gathered under the Mexico-Texas bridge waiting to enter the United States under the Biden open-border policy and persuade them to join the Republican Party.
You’d see Biden putting up razor-wire fence overnight. :-) :-)
The supposed problem is hard to measure. Assume it’s not a big deal unless obvious proof shows up someday. But don’t look too hard for the evidence. And trust the official narrative!
Anything else this remind you of?
This struck me.
Disclaimer: I am not personally scared immigrants are bringing Covid to whatever extent, as much as; possible and likely terrorist infiltration, too many indigent unskilled people(along with the hard workers – great people) who drive wages down, and, my wish that our country wasn’t a safety valve for these countries to offload their dissidents and criminals alike.
Covid is supposed to be highly contagious and deadly to some people, right?
By this logic, a family of three who are unvaccinated, trying to visit their dying grandma in the nursing home of 700 residents and employees, should be allowed in, because it’s akin to pouring a bucket of water into a swimming pool. Right?
In other words, it’s a very bad analogy. We are talking about a contagious disease. That is one of the few undisputed facts about this virus. They are claiming it’s deadly and must be stopped, and blaming ordinary Americans for hesitancy in getting vaccinated
If the government assumes the ability to stop outbreaks, it should have a plan that applies to everyone, because… anyone can be infected.
And what of the welfare of the immigrants?
Should they not be warned to not come because they will be held together in groups and some of their compadres might have Covid? along with providing food, shelter, medical attention and septic facilities, should we not also provide a vaccine? And testing for Covid, and quarantine the infected?
Private sector has to mask-up and vaccinate, government just does what it wants.
Why isn’t every journalist in the country not reporting that these mandates have interesting exclusions? Congress and those who work for them, are exempt, also the 800 thousand Postal workers and more. It’s absurd.
Aren’t Congresspeople important? Shouldn’t our leaders be best protected? We depend on them. They are public servants. So they say..
My gosh, what if there’s an outbreak in Congress and they have to quarantine and no new laws get passed?! And all because they refused to vaccinate.
So they want to profess to us how southern rednecks, refusing to Jax themselves are the cause of some minuscule outbreak somewhere to prove their narrative.
We’ve seen people getting arrested on the beach for surfing. This type of thing is worthy of government attention, but massive invasion or ‘buckets’, are to be shrugged off as insignificant.
At best, this sends a very mixed message, even as pure propaganda.
This is actually bad propaganda, proving how utterly stupid many Americans (nice people!) are.
Good propaganda shouldn’t be so easily falsifiable.
In which case we would have data on those people; whether they actually went where they were sent, what the test results were and whether they were treated/compliant.
I am guessing that data is unavailable. Or nonexistent.
I’d bet the latter.
I agree with your priorities, @franco. I’m angry that no one cares about the implications of this invasion. I’m angry that we don’t see the many dangers of letting these people in. Our government just keeps romping along like everything is fine, and it isn’t–not by a long shot!
The curious individual might wonder if one of the screening questions to determine COVID risk is “Did you vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election?”
?
If anyone in the federal government had the courage of his convictions (yes, I realize how ridiculous that idea is, since none of them has any courage, and no-one is going to be convicted of anything) he would require any adult not yet legally living in the United States, and therefore not subject to the protection of the US Constitution, to be vaccinated before being allowed to stay in this country, and he would require all children to be tested upon arrival and two weeks later. Anyone who refuses either procedure should be turned around and sent home, no questions asked. That the administration which promised to “end Covid” can’t even get this much straight is a national disgrace, if for no other reason that it adds to the incoherent messaging conveyed to those at home.
What are the purposes of systematically spreading the disease through uncontrolled illegal alien penetration of our border and free movement? Is spreading the disease a purpose or just an unfortunate side effect of the desire to flood the country with illegal aliens? What is the purpose of increase illegal aliens, whether they contain higher numbers of criminals or higher numbers of disease? Are the Chinese in charge? If not why are Democrats not opposed and why do Republican allow it in their states? or at least not raise greater hell about it?
Have you ever considered running for office, @she? ;-)
You are spot on @Susan. Very sentence that comes from the left must parsed.
When I got to this,
I thought to myself, ‘Illegal immigrants have more freedoms than citizens.’
And then two sentences later,
Great minds and all?
Indeed! But sometimes I feel as if I’m preaching to the choir. It’s always reassuring, though, to hear that what I say rings true. Thanks, @kcvolunteer!
No: Tax-paying, legal, green-card holder.
I could write speeches though….Perhaps I’d start with one on the subject of this CBS report that, starting in November, all visitors to the United States must be “fully-vaccinated” (whatever the definition of “fully-vaccinated is), and show proof of vaccination before boarding the plane to come here. This is in order to “protect Americans here at home,” says Jeff Zients, the White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator.
The new requirements do not affect those crossing at either the Southern or Northern border of the United States.
Because, apparently, none of those people crossing at the Southern border pose a threat to “Americans here at home,” no matter their Covid status now, or in the future.
This is exactly what I mean by “incoherent messaging.” That Biden and his horrid crew are allowed to get away with it is shameful.
It would be interesting to see what the Lefties advocating for no health-care treatment for the unvaccinated who get Covid, and those insurance companies who are considering changes to their coverage for the same individuals think about whether those same standards should be applied to the unvaccinated who are here illegally.
That no-one simply throws down a marker and says “this will not stand” is utterly baffling to me.
She, you are just making that up. There is nothing coordinated about their response.