Health officials in New York City are on high alert after receiving a measles at a migrant shelter in Brooklyn.
Two people have tested positive for the highly contagious disease at the Clinton Hill shelter, which houses about 3,000 migrants seeking to enter the U.S. legally.
Officials from the New York City Department of Public Health and Mental Hygiene are working with local hospitals and have quarantined the patients on one floor of the facility.
Asylum seekers are not required to be vaccinated when they arrive in the U.S. That means many may not have all the vaccinations the CDC considers essential.
The cases follow another case at a migrant shelter in Chicago in May, where one case led to an outbreak of 57 cases in the city. Outbreaks of other diseases have also been recorded at migrant shelters in the U.S. in recent years.
The Hall Street migrant shelter in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, is pictured. Two people there have been diagnosed with measles. Photo courtesy of Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Asylum seekers are not required to be vaccinated when they arrive in the U.S., meaning many may not have the shots the CDC considers essential.
Critics of the Biden administration have used the detention center outbreaks to criticize what they describe as a porous southern border.
Customs and Border Protection apprehended a record 2.5 million migrants in 2023. But by some estimates, more than 8.4 million have arrived since Biden took office.
The ages of the patients at the migrant shelter on Hall Street in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, have not been made public.
Measles is especially dangerous for children because their immune systems are more vulnerable and they are more likely to suffer serious consequences, such as encephalitis that can lead to brain damage and pneumonia.
Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said on Friday evening: “The Department of Health and Health + Hospitals are working together to ensure that anyone who has been exposed gets the support and resources they need.
“While measles is a highly contagious virus, the risk to the community is low since most New Yorkers have been vaccinated against it.”
Asylum seekers are not required to be vaccinated against measles upon arrival in the US.
Most Central American countries with high migrant origins, including Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Panama, have MMR vaccination rates above 90 percent.
In contrast, the vaccination rate in Venezuela is much lower, at 82 percent.
However, there are fears that the overcrowded migrant reception centres could be a hotbed of infections.
The NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation operates the public hospital system in New York City, which includes hospitals such as Bellevue Hospital and Kings County Hospital Center, located in Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively.
Taxpayers fund these hospitals through city, state, and federal funds. The public hospital system also relies on patient revenues and government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare for additional funding.
Many experts and Republican lawmakers have blamed the influx of migrants at the southern border on the spread of infectious diseases. Men seeking asylum are pictured being detained by Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border last week.
Migrants from South and Central America look through a hole in the border wall into the United States
Migrants pictured at a makeshift shelter in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, where many are being relocated. There has been an outbreak of measles and tuberculosis linked to the shelter
Crystal Hudson, a Brooklyn City Council member who represents the area where the shelter is located, was outraged that the city rejected her attempts to vaccinate all residents of the shelter.
She said: ‘Our request to take a vaccination van to an information fair my office organised on June 1 was rejected.
“For months, I have been demanding more resources for our new neighbors on Hall Street. But the refusal to provide a vaccination plan, combined with the lack of a citywide plan to right-size shelter populations and allow shelter stays longer than 30 and 60 days, has brought us here today.”
The two cases, which are not considered an outbreak, are expected to total three cases. They come amid a spike in measles in New York City. As of July 12, 11 cases have been reported in 2024, according to the city’s health department.
That’s up from just one case last year, when there were no cases for three years.
The city saw a massive outbreak in 2019, particularly among ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County, with a total of 605 cases reported that year.
Outbreaks of influenza, COVID-19 and tuberculosis have also occurred in migrant shelters in recent years. Several cases of tuberculosis have also been identified in shelters in Chicago.
Dr. Vasan, the Health Commissioner, has said in the past that President Biden’s lax border policies have so far led to an influx of migrants bringing infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, polio and COVID-19 into the country.
Meanwhile, Republicans have expressed disdain for Biden’s border policies and their perceived links to infectious diseases.
The Republican National Committee said: ‘BIDEN’S AMERICA: “Chicago now has more measles cases than the last 14 years COMBINED” amid influx of illegal immigrants into Democrat-run city.’
And Richard Grenell, a Republican who served as acting director of national intelligence in 2020, said: ‘Joe Biden’s open border is also a health crisis. Diseases we had under control are coming back… Tuberculosis breaks out in migrant shelters in Chicago after measles cases.’
Dozens of migrant families arrive at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York from Texas in September 2023.
The US is seeing an increase in measles cases, which is worrying public health authorities, especially given the lagging vaccination rates among children.
Border apprehensions and expulsions by CBP have increased dramatically since 2020, when they reached a record low of about 57,000. However, in 2023, that number increased up to 2.5 million.
And preliminary data from 2024 suggests the numbers could surpass that number by the end of the year. The number of encounters between Border Patrol agents and migrants at the southwest border already stands at 1.8 million.
According to government statistics, the number of apprehensions reached a record high in December 2023, with nearly 250,000 encounters with migrants crossing the border from Mexico.
That was the highest monthly total ever recorded, surpassing the previous record of about 224,000 encounters set in May 2022.
The increase during the Biden administration comes after the president campaigned on amnesty for illegal immigrants, particularly those seeking asylum because of gang violence and, in the case of Venezuela, an authoritarian government marked by corruption and human rights abuses.
But now voters are chafing at what millions see as too lenient, and Republicans in Congress are accusing the Biden administration of overseeing an open border that allows migrants to enter the country unchecked.
However, there are also illegal border crossings dropped by more than 50 percent in the six weeks since the president used his executive power to improve asylum screening, filter out those who pose a threat to public safety and put in place systems to quickly remove people who have no legal basis to remain here.
According to Troy A. Miller, CBP Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner, the executive actions resulted in a 29 percent decrease in the number of apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol from May to June, a more than 50 percent decrease in the seven-day average from the announcement through the end of the month, and a doubling of the number of noncitizens removed from the Border Patrol in June.