Tag: tuberculosis

Poor Louisiana! They don't get that many refugees, but they got 21 with TB between 2011 and 2015

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has done it again—unearthed some information the refugee resettlement contractors would rather you didn’t know about: how many refugees enter the US with latent or active TB.  In this case 21 went to Louisiana and developed active Tuberculosis within a short time of arrival.

David Aguillard
Catholic Charities monopolizes the resettlement of refugees in Louisiana. This is David Aguillard Director of Catholic Charities in Baton Rouge. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/11/28/syrian-refugees-louisiana-political-debate.html

If you are a new reader, just arriving here today, I bet you can’t believe that any immigrant with any type of TB is even permitted entry.

Isn’t it a good thing that we have Obamacare to pay for all of the care and the medicine?
21 cases of active TB in just four years in refugees resettled in Louisiana! Yikes! From Leahy at Breitbart:

Twenty-one of the 1,579 refugees sent by the federal government to Louisiana between 2011 and 2015 developed active tuberculosis (TB) within one year of their arrival, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals tells Breitbart News.

Louisiana now has the dubious distinction as the state with the highest reported number of recently resettled refugees with active TB —at least among the five states that have confirmed to Breitbart that refugees resettled in their state have either arrived with active TB, or developed it within the first year of their arrival.

Go here for more.
Then visit our health issues category here with more shocking information like this.
If your town is considering ‘welcoming’ refugees you need to get all the facts.  Are you listening: Missoula, MT, Ithaca, NY, Rutland, VT, Reno, NV, Charleston, WV and Fayetteville, Arkansas?
One last thing…does anyone know if volunteers working with the newly arrived refugees get a briefing from the contractor, Catholic Charities in this case, about how to spot refugees who might have a communicable disease or be carrying parasites (a big concern with refugees coming from Africa)?
Update: I forgot to tell you which cities in Louisiana have resettlement offices: Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Metairie.

More active TB cases in the refugee population, Colorado this time

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you haven’t been following the great investigative work that Breitbart reporter Michael Patrick Leahy is doing getting information to the public about the FACT that refugees are permitted entry into the US with Tuberculosis (and other communicable diseases), you should.

Cargill workers
The US State Department resettles Somalis and other African refugees in Colorado to satisfy BIG MEAT’s need for cheap labor. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/03/10/meatpackers-and-somali-workers-again-disrupt-small-town-life-in-america/

Islamic terror attacks understandably make the news, but in the long run the return of diseases (thought to be virtually non-existent) and the arrival of parasites into the US should cause you to lose sleep especially if you are in one of 200 plus ‘welcoming’ American towns and cities.
Who do you think will be paying for all of the healthcare?
Here is Leahy yesterday,

Ten of the approximately 8,000 refugees who were resettled in Colorado by the federal government between 2011 and 2015 were diagnosed with active tuberculosis shortly after their arrival, according to the Tuberculosis in Colorado: 2015 report published by the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment.

A number of other states have also reported refugees have arrived with active TB, as Breitbart News reported previously. Four refugees with active TB were resettled in Indiana in 2015, and eleven refugees with active TB were resettled in Florida in the three years from 2013 to 2015.

The recent increase in the number of active TB cases reported in the United States is driven by increases in the foreign born population with high rates of active and latent TB, as Breitbart News reported last week…

Go here to learn more.
And, visit our health issues category (you will find Leahy’s series there), it isn’t just diseases and assorted health problems you pay for, but you are also paying for mental health treatment.
One post from 2007 is definitely worth revisiting about a refugee worker dying with TB in a meatpacking plant, here.

Florida: Eleven refugees entered the state with active TB since 2013

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the next in a series of stunning refugee health reports from Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.

We knew refugees were permitted to move to your towns and cities with latent Tuberculosis but had never heard that cases of active TB were arriving until Leahy began his series.

cuba-unloading-ship-1024x834
Most Americans are shocked to learn that we are still admitting tens of thousands of Cuban “refugees” each year with most going to Florida. Now to add insult to injury we learn that they are not screened for TB and some have arrived with an active form of the communicable disease. Photo: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/01/05/time-to-end-special-privileges-for-cuban-immigrants/

Do you remember a few years ago the media was going berserk because one guy with active TB flew on a plane somewhere and the news media was going crazy trying to piece together information on where he had been and with whom he sat on the plane.
Well, just think about this, eleven cases were walking around Florida’s mostly Cuban community with active TB in the last couple of years.
So where is the mainstream media now?
Here is Leahy again in a very detailed account of the situation:

Eleven refugees with active tuberculosis (TB) were among more than 111,000 refugees who arrived in Florida during the three years between 2013 and 2015, according to a report the Florida Department of Health recently sent to Breitbart News.

Their active TB status was determined in medical screenings completed within 90 days of their arrival in the Sunshine State.

This news comes barely a week after Breitbart News reported that four refugees with active TB were sent to Indiana in 2015.

[….]

The vast majority of these refugees who arrived in Florida between 2013 and 2015–104,000 of the 111,000– came from Cuba under the “wet-foot, dry-foot policy,” the 1995 “amendment to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. . . [that] gives migrants from Cuba special treatment that no other group of refugees or immigrants receives… [and] puts Cubans who reach U.S. soil on a fast track to permanent residency,” as Dan Moffett reports.

Only a small percentage of these 104,000 Cuban refugees–an estimated total of 3,000–entered as “traditional arrival” refugees, the program through which approximately 70,000 refugees per year enter the United States from over 100 different countries.

If you are confused by the numbers, Leahy explains that the huge number of Cuban supposed “refugees” admitted to the US are given the same special treatment that regular refugees receive.  However, at least the regular refugees have some screening abroad while the Cubans do not.  They can literally walk around in your neighborhoods for weeks before they even get any health screening.
Continue reading here.
This is our 300th post in our ‘health issues’ category.  Some of Leahy’s earlier reports are archived there.
I wonder, are volunteers who work with refugees briefed by the resettlement contractor about what diseases, parasites etc. the refugees might be carrying?

Some states are pretty secretive about refugee health data—Tennessee is one of them

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy (Breitbart) continues his series on Tuberculosis and other communicable diseases entering the US with the refugee population with this news from Tennessee.
Citizens of the Volunteer State are not given information about the health status of their new ‘refugee’ neighbors.

President Barack Obama is introduced by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam as he speaks about No Child Left Behind Reform in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Sept. 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican Gov. Haslam, left, with friend. Is the Governor adequately protecting the health and well-being of TN citizens?

We have a tendency to focus on the Islamic terrorism angle with refugees and migrants to the US generally, but in addition to the cost to the taxpayer is this oft-forgotten worry about refugees—-we are very lax about refugee health.
However, if you are a different sort of legal immigrant or adopting kids from abroad, you know how rigorous that health screening is and how many immunizations must be given abroad or immediately upon arrival.
Not so with refugees as we are learning from Leahy’s investigative work.
Breitbart yesterday:

NASHVILLE, Tennessee—Both the Tennessee Department of Health and the VOLAG (voluntary agency) that administers the refugee resettlement program in the Volunteer State, Catholic Charities of Tennessee’s Tennessee Office for Refugees, are failing to make public critical information on refugee tuberculosis (TB) health care.

Breitbart News asked the two organizations to provide the following refugee TB healthcare data, which several other states make public on an annual basis, but neither provided it:

• The percentage of refugees who successfully completed medical screenings within 90 days of their arrival, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
• The percentage of refugees who tested positive for Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI).
• The percentage of refugees who tested positive for LTBI who completed medical treatment.
• The number of refugees who were diagnosed with active TB upon their arrival in Tennessee.

Tennessee is one of fourteen states that have withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement. In those states, the Office of Refugee Resettlement has selected a VOLAG to run the refugee resettlement operations under the statutorily questionable Wilson Fish alternative program.

The Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution in April to sue the federal government for its operation of the refugee resettlement program on Tenth Amendment grounds. In May, Gov. Haslam chose not to veto the resolution, so a lawsuit is in the works, though Tennessee’s embattled Attorney General Herbert Slatery could raise an objection impacting the Tennessee General Assembly’s standing.

At least seven states that are not part of the Wilson Fish alternative program, California, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, Indiana, and Florida, regularly report on the health data, tuberculosis and otherwise, of refugees resettled in their states.

Go here for more of this very thorough report.
All of you working in ‘pockets of resistance’ should start checking whether your state collects refugee health data.  There are several diseases and parasites the come in with refugees in addition to TB.
We have 297 previous posts on refugee and immigrant health issues archived at RRW.

TB controversy continues as refugees and their advocates protest TV station in Fargo, ND

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Questions surrounding the admission to the US of refugees with Tuberculosis are growing.
See last night’s latest report from Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.
We knew that refugees with latent TB were being admitted to the US, but we didn’t know that a significant percentage of those with latent TB become active TB cases.  Of course you are paying for their treatment (if they even get it!).
In a typical attempt to silence anyone in the media who dares to question our US refugee policy, a demonstration was mounted on Sunday against Valley News Live.

Del Rae Williams
Moorhead, MN mayor Del Rae Williams supports more refugee resettlement for North Dakota and Minnesota.

Here is a report of what happened!  Local elected officials joined the protesters who were removed by the police from private property. (Emphasis is mine)

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) A small protest that was advertised as a “peaceful demonstration” by a local Somali activist group turned into a confrontation outside the Valley News Live studios on Sunday.

Protestors confronted a Valley News Live photographer as she attempted to shoot video of the event.

Fargo Police removed the protestors from the KVLY property.

Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams and Fargo’s Deputy Mayor Mike Williams also showed up for the event. Both support refugee resettlement in the area.

The group demonstrated because they said they were upset over reporter Bradford Arick’s story on the risk of latent tuberculosis in local refugee communities.

Our story presented data and facts from the CDC, State of Minnesota and State of North Dakota on the numbers of latent TB cases in the refugee population.

The State of Minnesota says 22% of refugees in that state carry latent TB while only active TB cases bars someone from entering the country.

The Fargo Forum newspaper criticized Valley News Live’s reporting as blatantly false. Forum Communications owns our competitors WDAY and WDAZ. [These competitors should just do their own investigation and report on the issue rather than encourage the silencing of any other media—ed]

Fargo Deputy Mayor Mike Williams addresses the crowd of protestors outside of the Valley News Live offices in Fargo, North Dakota, on Sunday, May 22, 2016. Nick Wagner / The Forum
Fargo Deputy Mayor Mike Williams (wants more refugees too) addresses the crowd of protestors outside of the Valley News Live offices in Fargo, North Dakota, on Sunday, May 22, 2016.
Nick Wagner / The Forum

The newspaper also interviewed Cass County Health Department’s Dr. John Baird.

Baird told the forum that TB is quote “not a major problem” in the area but later admitted that Cass County Health is treating active TB cases in the community.

[….]

Valley News Live stands by the story and we plan to continue looking into the issues surrounding refugee resettlement in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Good for Valley News Live!  

Don’t let them intimidate people and silence speech!
Here is Valley News Live’s contact information!  Maybe some of you should write to them and tell them to hang in there, that they are doing a great service for America!
Fargo Office 1350 21st Avenue South Fargo, ND 58103 mail@valleynewslive.com
We have written a whole lot about North Dakota over the years, it is one of the top states for refugee resettlement on a per capita basis, go here for our previous posts.  By the way, it is a Lutheran federal contractor running the resettlement program there.
About the photos:  Are these elected officials related or are there just a lot of people with the ‘Williams’ last name out there? Just wondering!