Texas border-area hospital beds being filled with COVID-19 infected migrants is a false narrative, CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan told Breitbart Texas in an exclusive interview. Rather, the commissioner said some beds are being used by U.S. citizens and people with Legal Permanent Resident Status (LPR) who are crossing the border legally from Mexico.
“Early on there’s a false narrative that started and it’s kind of permeated” that border hospitals are being filled by illegal aliens and legal border crossers, Commissioner Morgan said. “We haven’t been able to shake it.”
Morgan explained that earlier this year, the Trump administration closed the U.S.-Mexico border under Title 19 authority to non-essential travel from Mexico into the United States.
“What we saw immediately,” Morgan explained, “was a precipitous drop of those crossing. We saw a well over 60 percent drop in lawful pedestrian and vehicular traffic. That has maintained pretty consistently throughout.”
“The overwhelming majority of the individuals still crossing are actually U.S. citizens and LPRs,” the commissioner stated. “About 83 to 85 percent of those who are coming across the southwest border are U.S. citizens and LPRs.”
“Very few Mexican nationals are actually coming across,” Morgan continues. “And, the Mexican nationals are not coming across for COVID-related medical treatment.”
“What we are being told [by CDC and HHS] is that hospital beds that are being filled up along the southwest border hotspots are not Mexican nationals,” he flatly stated. “It’s actually U.S. citizens and LPRs.”
Regardless, hospital beds in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas are being filled. In response, Breitbart Texas reported, the U.S. Department of Defense deployed Army and Navy medical teams to locations along the Texas border to provide support, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) said in a written statement.
“The support from our federal partners is crucial in our work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our communities throughout Texas,” said Governor Abbott.
The governor expressed his gratitude for the deployment of medical staff from the U.S. Army Urban Augmentation Medical Task Force and the U.S. Navy Rural Rapid Response and Acute Care Teams.
“These teams, coupled with our newly established partnership with local hotels, will aid in our efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 and ensure adequate hospital capacity in the Valley,” Abbott concluded.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
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