One stock racist rhetorical tool is to use the stereotype that migrants carry disease to generate fear of migration. This well-worn tool has most recently been deployed against the “migrant caravan” that became a fixation of Trump. Somewhat ironically, migrants to the United States make up 16% of healthcare workers, including 29% of physicians and 24% of dentists. As such, while there is little chance that a migrant will bring a disease into the United States, there is a good chance that one will provide your healthcare. Because of these facts, using disease as a reason to limit migration would seem to be irrational. While someone might advance the reason in sincere ignorance rather than from racism, it is primarily a tool of baseless fear and racism. But, is it true that migrants present no health risks?
If the safety standard is that migrants must present zero health risk, then this standard obviously cannot be met: there is a non-zero chance that a migrant will have an illness that gets passed on to American. As such, it could be truly said that migration does increase the number of cases of illness in a country: more than zero migrants will be ill when they enter, and more than zero Americans will catch some illness from migrants. However, this hardly warrants regarding migrants as health threat. After all, there are non-zero cases in which a migrant saves a life or does something else heroic. But it would be odd to speak of the great promise of a wave of migrant heroism—except in the economic sense. Likewise, speaking of the threat of a wave of migrant disease would be odd and unfounded.
It might be objected that my lack of terror about diseased migrants entails that I favor open borders and support allowing people to simply flow into the United States without regulation and without any health concerns. My easy and obvious reply is that my lack of terror about diseased immigrants entails nothing about my view of immigration policy or borders—except the obvious fact that I do not think that fears of diseased migrants should shape border policy. While I am not terrified of diseased hordes invading America, I do still have health concerns that do connect to the movement of people.
The fear that migrants can bring devastating diseases to the Americas is based on historical fact. When Europeans arrived in what they called the New World they brought with them Old World diseases that proved devastating to the native populations. Smallpox, in particular, decimated the native people—thus greatly assisting the Europeans in their conquest of these lands. If the natives had been able to enforce strong borders and keep the Europeans out, history would be radically different. As would be suspected, modern opponents of migration to the United States do not normally use this as an example when making their disease argument—it, after all, makes it clear that most people who are here now are migrants or descendants of recent migrants. There is also the fact that the situation now is radically different from then.
Back in the 1500s the native people had little or no resistance to European diseases and there was no modern medicine. The situation is quite different today. Migrants coming to the United States will not be bringing in diseases unknown in the United States that can cut down vast swaths of the population because there is no health care. That said, the possibility of global pandemics is a legitimate problem—but such pandemics are unlikely to arise from migrants coming from the other Americas into the United States. As such, legitimate worries about pandemics do not warrant restricting general migration. After all, what generally occurs is vaccinated people migrating from countries with health care systems to the United States. But, what about when this is not the case?
One matter of very real concern is the fact that Venezuela’s health care system is collapsing due to the corruption and mismanagement of its government. One consequence is an outbreak of measles. Health care professionals have been leaving Venezuela, which is making it even harder to address the outbreak—but this migration of professionals will potentially benefit other countries. Citizens of the country have also been trying to flee the disaster that is Venezuela and this creates the very real possibility that people infected with measles will spread to other countries.
Normally, this would not be a very serious problem—vaccination against measles is safe and effective. It was also widespread. However, some Americans have decided to forgo vaccinating their children—thus making some members of the population vulnerable to the disease. Because of this, having people bringing measles to the United States is now a potential problem.
While proponents of the disease argument against migration might be ecstatic about this situation, even this scenario does not warrant the sort of migration restrictions they favor. After all, measles is already here and does not need to be brought across the border. Rather than showing that the United States needs to tighten up the borders, this situation shows that the United States must tighten up the vaccination requirements for citizens to ensure that they are properly protected from diseases that are already here. Vaccines and health care, not a wall, will keep us safe from disease.
migrants to the United States make up 16% of healthcare workers, including 29% of physicians and 24% of dentists. As such, while there is little chance that a migrant will bring a disease into the United States, there is a good chance that one will provide your healthcare.
It doesn’t follow that because 16% of all migrants are health professionals, that any similar or significant portion of the specific people walking towards the US are health professionals. I suspect the 16% referred to came in by more conventional and comfortable means than walking in a caravan or sneaking over the border from Mexico.
The overall rate of migrants’ involvement in health care is not relevant to the question of tightening up the borders.
I do agree that migrants whose health records can be checked and who can if necessary receive immunisations or vaccinations,before entering should pose no more health threat than natives. However, those who enter illegally might be carrying more risk.
It doesn’t follow that because 16% of all migrants are health professionals, that any similar or significant portion of the specific people walking towards the US are health professionals.
Come on CT. You’re falling for the same leftist BS line that they have been using for years now.
However, those who enter illegally might be carrying more risk.
Ah…So you do see. Why do you let Mike get away with conflating these two categories? OK, you give some pushback in the last sentence. But the illegal immigration is the meat of the problem. I understand you are not US citizen but surely you understand that the vast majority of Americans, also the vast majority of Trump supporters, are not opposed to immigration. They are significantly opposed to ILLEGAL immigration. Conflating these two sets of people does not constitute a truly philosophical discussion. It is a polemic. I diatribe. And an intellectual disgrace. Of course, this is obvious to those who bother to do the analysis.
Hrmph. I wasn’t in any way falling for anything. My fallacy-meter bleeped immediately I read it, and my first sentence reflects that.
People entering the country without health clearance are a legitimate threat. I can’t quantify the size of that threat, but against the vulnerability widened by the anti-vaxxers, it is not zero. Thus, it is a legitimate argument for tightening the borders to prevent illegal entry,
well my bad then. You couched your criticism such gentle terms relative to the absolute beating that Mike gives to truth, reality, the English language, whatever that I glossed over that first sentence. Though we agree, so again, my bad. Though to your point about “People entering the country without health clearance are a legitimate threat. I can’t quantify the size of that threat”, I think DH does as good a job as can be reasonably expected addressing this below.
Mike makes no distinction between people here legally and those here illegally. This is a conscious and purposeful blurring of this line.
Again, does this surprise you?
City officials are now pursuing a full-court press to eradicate rats and fleas. Crews are to clean up the entire Civic Center area in coming weeks, including stepped-up street sweeping and removal of vegetation that may provide animals with shelter or food. Employees are being told to empty the trash each night and put away food and water that may attract animals. There is discussion of ripping out office carpets to get rid of droppings and fleas.
Greenwood, who works in a unit that defends the LAPD in lawsuits brought against the department, is the only City Hall employee who has said publicly that she contracted typhus.
The disease, which has been around since medieval times, is carried by rats. Fleas become infected when they bite rats and then spread it to humans either through bites or when the insects’ feces are rubbed into a cut or scrape in a person’s skin.
Typhus has been a growing problem in L.A. The disease is associated with overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, and last year, after a half dozen homeless people came down with typhus, county officials declared an outbreak in downtown L.A. At the time, they urged residents to steer clear of rats and other wild animals.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-city-hall-typhus-20190209-story.html
I’m sure it is just a coincidence that Typhus has found a home in L.A.
It is a very tiresome, yet prevalent ploy of the left to conflate “migration” with “illegal immigration”. Their wording has taken a shift, too…it used to be called “immigration”, but even that is a political term that connotes some sort of border restriction. “Migration” is a much better word, describing the long term shifting of populations from various regions to others.
It is equally tiresome and prevalent to take what used to be regarded as a legitimate concern for any nation, i.e., whether or not those crossing its borders have been properly immunized against diseases like TB, measles, typhus, and others, and reduce it to a simplistic (and erroneous) yet powerful accusation of racism.
While Mexico and other Central American countries boast high immunization rates, confidence in the accuracy of those claims remains low. Further, it is unlikely that members of a migratory caravan or others who seek illegal entry into the US represent a cross section of the population whence they came. In other words, if a country claims that 89% of their population have been immunized, it cannot be assumed that 89% of their representation among those illegally crossing US borders would have been immunized. It is far more likely that these people are a negative selection set – poor, disenfranchised, alienated – with a much lower vaccination rate than the rest of their national population.
But tribal politics and talking points being what they are, it is much easier to ignore these legitimate concerns in favor of the much more effective cry of “racism!”
https://cis.org/Immigration-Studies/Vaccination-Rates-Among-Immigrants-Are-Legitimate-Concern
Hmm. I wrote this post a couple of days ago, and when I submitted it it disappeared. I later re-wrote it (below) as a replacement – and all of a sudden, here it is! Sorry for the redundancy, but I claim “racisim!” (no, wait, I mean “digital confusion”)
I’m sure it is just a coincidence that Typhus has found a home in L.A.
Hmm…but Mike does not live in LA so what’s your point? There are “easy and obvious” answers to your concerns. Are you too obtuse to see them?
I can be pretty obtuse. For example, I can’t make heads or tails out of this paper:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.01941
I wouldn’t call not understanding that being obtuse. But then I’m not a physics major….it was physics, yes? 😉 Or was it chemistry? I could make a chemistry joke but all the good ones argon.
It is a nearly constant, and very tiresome deception (or maybe delusion?) of the left to conflate “Immigration” with “Illegal Immigration”; and now it has shifted even more. “Migration” strips the global human movement of any and all political connotation, and seems to want to imply that politics and racism are interrupting the natural migratory pattern of the human species.
This diversion allows them to take what has always been a legitimate concern – i.e., the health of a population of immigrants crossing our borders unchecked, and reduce it to the simple yet powerful accusation of racism.
“One stock racist rhetorical tool is to use the stereotype that migrants carry disease to generate fear of migration.”
Let me help you with that sentence.
“It is in the best interest of the government of any country to require that those wishing to cross the border do so via a process that, among other things, will ensure that they have been properly immunized against a variety of contagious diseases”.
The WHO has published numbers relating to the vaccination rates of Mexico, Guatemala, and other Central American origins of illegal immigrants (the “Migrant Caravan”, among others), which to the headline readers and “rush-to-racism” crowd might be very reassuring – but there are a few additional factors to consider.
Mexico, for example, boasted a 99% measles vaccination rate in 2012 – better than that of the US – but that rate dropped to 89% by 2013. Likewise for Guatemala and Honduras, while others’ rates remained relatively unchanged. Why the drop, though? The WHO has published additional information on these data, relative to the “confidence” in the accuracy of the reported numbers – and all of these sources of would-be illegal border crossers rate at best a “medium” confidence level, with a majority ranking “low”.
But even if the numbers are accurate – it is highly unlikely that the members of the “Migrant Caravan” and other groups seeking alternate means of entry into the US represent an accurate cross section of their country’s population. More likely, these are the fringe, the unemployed, the disenfranchised – those who, through negative selection, have a higher frequency of the 8% – 9% of the total population who are not immunized.
Put another way – the estimates for the size of this last caravan ranged from as low as 4,000 to as many as 14,000 people, most of whom were from Honduras. Honduras’ reported vaccination rates for both measles and TB hover around 89%-93%, numbers which carry a low confidence rate from the WHO.
So in a best case scenario, if we believe the numbers to be wholly accurate and that the members of the caravan do represent a cross section of the population, then we’d be talking about anywhere from 400 – 1400 (10%) people crossing the border illegally, undocumented, un-checked, un-tracked, who have likely not been immunized against these highly contagious diseases. And that’s just from one caravan.
There are no official statistics indicating how many people are successful in crossing the border illegally each year; these data are interpolated based on “apprehensions”. However, the DHS estimates that of the 10 million people living here illegally in 2015, most have been here for more than 10 years, with only about 6% entering within the last five years. Well, that’s 60,000 people – or 12,000 per year. Applying the above best-case scenario regarding vaccination rates, that would indicate that 10% of those people, or 1200 individuals per year are not likely to have been immunized against measles or TB, and who have successfully crossed the border without detection and disappeared into the “shadows”.
Of course, factoring in the negative selection of the unemployed and disenfranchised, there is no telling what the density of non-immunized individuals might be relative to the total population of illegal immigrants.
To say that this is not a topic of legitimate concern, especially using data from the DHS and WHO, is to be completely blind to reality. To reduce it to a mere “stock rhetorical racist tool” aimed at unfounded fear-mongering is at best short-sighted, but more likely merely a function of being completely mesmerized by the tribal drumbeats of the political left. (Wait – was that some kind of racist dog-whistle? I’d better be more careful of what I say).
The data is there, compiled by legitimate private and government sources, both domestic and international. What we are witnessing is true “science denial”
…and now it has shifted even more. “Migration” …
Thank you. That was bugging me as well but this idiocy being such a target rich environment…bah…whatever.
And to this very point:
And with what socio-economic group here in the US are those fringe elements more likely to bump up against? Yours, mine, TJ’s, Mike’s? Or the poor and downtrodden in the US, people whom people like Mike profess (and oh, how they profess) to care about? I would say that this is the meat of it. The professing. The virtue signaling. At least for the dumb ones on the left. The elitists are all for spreading misery, especially while the right is perceived to be in power, because the more misery, the greater the call for more authoritarian action. There’s the real “National Emergency” danger, once the left is back in power.
Yep
Exactly. But they are the party of science. They say so themselves. Don’t get much more scientific than that.
In the spirit of even-handedness, I’d have to admit that there are extremists on both sides of this, but it is the responsibility of both sides, and the general public, to discern fact from fiction and not get crazy with accusations.
I’m speaking about the Wired magazine article cited in Mike’s original post, which bears the headline “CALLING THE CARAVAN’S MIGRANTS “DISEASED” IS A CLASSIC XENOPHOBIC MOVE”, which, in itself, is pretty inflammatory.
Reading the article, and only that article, I have to confess, I was a little embarrassed and suspicious of the conservative take on this issue myself. It was only after a little bit of Googling that I got the real story, from which the Wired article was careful to cherry pick for their own “Republicans, Conservatives, and Trump Supporters are Xenophobic Racists Who Lie” editorial position.
It is true that Sydney Powell suggested that AFM might be brought here by immigrants, based on the very sketchy “we don’t know where it comes from” premise. But a closer look reveals that this disease was mentioned within the context of several other more plausible scenarios, like TB for example. Adam Rogers fails to mention this – only chooses the most implausible to make his point:
“a guest on the Fox Business Network said earlier this week. Leprosy, smallpox, and all kinds of horrible infectious diseases are making their way to the United States.”
Unfortunately, Rogers fails to mention the focus on TB, or the fact that despite the WHO declaration that leprosy was eliminated as a public health problem in 2000, they also report that there are pockets of the disease remaining in India, Brazil, and Central America.
Nor does Rogers do the responsible thing and report, truthfully, that Lou Dobbs challenged the assertions made by Powell, after which Fox issued a clarifying statement.
So to recap – Fox had a guest on their program who made some assertions about illegal immigrants and disease. Some of these assertions were legitimate, others were pretty far-fetched. The host of the program disputed the wilder claims on air, and attempted to keep the conversation focused on more plausible issues.
But, as is so often the case, a writer for a left-leaning publication decided to refocus the argument. No longer is it about disease, it’s about Republicans, Conservatives, and Trump-Supporters, and their Xenophobic and Racist Ways.
In light of the realities of the situation, both Dobbs and Fox acted responsibly, by challenging the inaccurate positions of Powell, and by issuing a clarifying statement disavowing the opinions he stated.
But what of Powell, and Wired? Tremendously irresponsible, in my opinion – because there really is an issue regarding the spread of disease and lack of immunization among illegal immigrants, and by refocusing the story on the same old low-hanging fruit, they contribute to the eyes-wide-shut refusal to address the issue at whatever level it needs to be addressed. So now, anyone who actually pays attention to statistics, who is able to separate the wild claims of Smallpox from the legitimate concerns over measles, TB, and other very plausible concerns, can be dismissed as a lunatic racist.
Cooler heads must prevail. Just as those on the right have a responsibility to dismiss the lunatic fringe on this issue, so have those on the left a similar responsibility to consider the more feasible scenarios and apply a little critical thinking as to how to best deal with it, without immediately resorting to that same old “racist” conversation-stopper.
And yet Mike chose to use this Wired article as the jumping off point of his essay. And “educated” man, mind you. One who is employed, with significant taxpayer subsidy, to teach classes in critical thinking. What can we learn from this? Or better yet, as it’s been Groundhog Day around these parts for over a decade (gee, has it really been ten years?), can we learn anything?
Seriously, think about this. Money pours into our public universities where students take classes like Mike’s and similar, some required some elective but same cost ussue either way, they accumulate debt in addition to the subsidies we already have dished out in taxes, and this is the result:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Trump454545/status/1098922030437683200
Do you suppose she had any classes in critical thinking or anything similar? If this situation doesn’t scare the crap out of you, you’re not paying attention.