Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/us/flu-outbreak-border-detention-center.html
Flu Outbreak Prompts Largest Border Detention Center to Stop Processing Migrants
By Manny Fernandez and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
May 22, 2019
HOUSTON ? Border Patrol officials temporarily stopped processing apprehended migrants at the agency?s largest detention center, in the South Texas city of McAllen, after nearly three dozen detainees there became ill with the flu.
The halt was ordered late Tuesday, a day after the death of a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who was sick with the flu and had been in custody at the center.
On Tuesday, medical staff at the facility ? known as the Centralized Processing Center or Ursula, from its address on Ursula Avenue ? identified 32 migrants with high fevers and flu-related symptoms. Officials decided to temporarily suspend all intake procedures for migrants to ?avoid the spread of illness,? the Border Patrol?s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.
The Centralized Processing Center remained in operation, but migrants apprehended in the area were being processed at other locations, officials said. A Border Patrol official told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the 32 ill detainees had been transferred out of the McAllen center to nearby facilities for further tests, and that intake processing would resume later in the day.
The flu outbreak and the disruptions it caused raised new questions and controversy over the conditions and the medical care in Border Patrol facilities, as the agency scrambles to handle a surge of migrants arriving from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador...
Flu Outbreak Prompts Largest Border Detention Center to Stop Processing Migrants
By Manny Fernandez and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
May 22, 2019
HOUSTON ? Border Patrol officials temporarily stopped processing apprehended migrants at the agency?s largest detention center, in the South Texas city of McAllen, after nearly three dozen detainees there became ill with the flu.
The halt was ordered late Tuesday, a day after the death of a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who was sick with the flu and had been in custody at the center.
On Tuesday, medical staff at the facility ? known as the Centralized Processing Center or Ursula, from its address on Ursula Avenue ? identified 32 migrants with high fevers and flu-related symptoms. Officials decided to temporarily suspend all intake procedures for migrants to ?avoid the spread of illness,? the Border Patrol?s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.
The Centralized Processing Center remained in operation, but migrants apprehended in the area were being processed at other locations, officials said. A Border Patrol official told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the 32 ill detainees had been transferred out of the McAllen center to nearby facilities for further tests, and that intake processing would resume later in the day.
The flu outbreak and the disruptions it caused raised new questions and controversy over the conditions and the medical care in Border Patrol facilities, as the agency scrambles to handle a surge of migrants arriving from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador...