Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz criticized the Trump administration’s policy of refusing to administer flu vaccines to immigrants Wednesday, as most migrants receive flu shots well after they have started showing symptoms or are already sick.
The California congressman asked in an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on flu preparedness if U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s refusal to vaccinate people before they are transferred, to either Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement, allows people to get sick, when the agency could be preventing the illness by vaccinating migrants immediately after arrest.
His questions come weeks after a Washington Post report that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had instructed CBP in January to vaccinate people instead of shuffling them to other agencies who then would do so. CBP said last month it had no intention of beginning vaccinations.
“Influenza vaccinations should be implemented at the earliest feasible point of entry to allow for maximum protection of migrants,” Ruiz said, quoting the CDC’s January recommendation.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, confirmed migrants receive the vaccinations days to weeks after CBP detention, beyond the point at which the vaccine would be most effective.
Outside medical groups are pressuring CBP to vaccinate migrants after three migrant children who had passed through its facilities over the past year died of complications from the flu.
“If people contract the flu in CBP custody, receiving the vaccine weeks later in other government facilities does not offer them any protection against the illness,” Ruiz said. “So, that’s why the recommendation was to vaccinate them at the earliest point of entry at CBP.”
Children in CBP custody are especially vulnerable to the virus and other infectious diseases, Ruiz said, because they have weakened immune systems exacerbated by traveling to the border. Migrants travel on foot, bus, and train, and stay in hotels, government-provided spaces, and other places, where they may be exposed to the flu on the way to the United States. Ruiz called crowded CBP facilities a “breeding ground” for flu virus transmission.
One month before the CDC’s January letter, an 8-year-old Guatemalan migrant died from the flu while in CBP custody. Following the health agency’s recommendation, two additional migrant children died from the flu after being diagnosed while in the agency’s care. None of the children had been vaccinated.
Last month, CBP refused an offer by a private group of doctors who offered to vaccinate people in its custody.
