During a press conference on Tuesday, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus called on Customs and Border Protection officials to prevent another catastrophic loss of life and vaccinate people in their custody against the flu. "This is a matter of life and death whether the administration is willing to administer this flu shot," chair Joaquin Castro said.
Border officials have faced widespread criticism from legislators, medical professionals, and advocates for continuing to refuse to give flu shots to detained children and families, even after a new ProPublica report revealed horrific details regarding the flu death of 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez last May. Rep. Raul Ruiz, himself an emergency department doctor, called the kinds of inhumane cells where Carlos died "a breeding ground" for disease.
"In fact, the CDC did a report studying from December 2018 [to] January 2019, they found the cases of flu in those holding cells within CBP was more prevailing than in the nation,” he said. “So we know that those areas are high risk to get the flu, especially when your immune system is weakened by a lack of caloric intake, lack of rest.” The CDC in fact recommended that families receive these vaccinations, but border officials ignored that recommendation.
”CDC officials visited Border Patrol detention facilities in El Paso and Yuma, Ariz., in December and January, at CBP’s request,” The Washington Post reported last month. “The CDC’s January report warned that because of inadequate medical infrastructure in the facilities, ‘illness in the Border Patrol facilities stresses both the Border Patrol staff and community medical infrastructure.’” So they invited officials just to not listen to what they had to say.
Rep. Nydia Velázquez further called out the administration’s ongoing lie that kids aren’t vaccinated because they’re held for short periods of time, when “we have seen, time and time again, that migrants are being held much longer than intended, thanks to this administration’s inhumane policies.” A report from the Homeland Security inspector general last month found that border officials have frequently violated the law to jail kids for as long as 10 days.
"Our government has a responsibility and moral obligation to keep immigrants in US custody healthy and safe,” Velázquez said. “We should not have another child or another detained migrant die on our watch. We need CBP to provide vaccinations and adequate medical care immediately. We must be a better nation.”