The photos appeared on a screen of migrants crammed into semi-trailers and hideouts with blurred faces, while the head of the national border security firm warned of the dangers faced by officials and port agents on the floor due to COVID-19.
These are “perfect incubators for COVID-19,” U.S. Act of Customs and Border Protection commissioner Mark Morgan said in an earlier online presentation this month.
“Migrants continue to forget their country’s recommendation to stay home,” he said.By traveling without authorization, they “endanger the lives of CBP and their families and those of our border communities and beyond.”
But a national union representing the border said that while the company has provided enough protective equipment, it has not put a coronavirus test protocol into effect even when cases between CBP increase around 2000.
Also: a pregnant migrant sought refuge, but learned that “there was no assistance at this time” at the US-Mexico border.
“Since March, we have requested normal COVID-19 testing for all CBP employees, provided through the agency,” said Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 27,000 CBP at the country’s ports of entry.
“CBP employees, most of whom paint through telepaints, fear getting COVID-19 into the paintings and returning it to their families,” he said.
Some 787 border security officials and officials contracted COVID-19 in Texas alone, representing more than a third of the 1,893 inflamed CBP members nationwide, according to the agency’s most recent account.Arizona and California.
Ten CBP workers died from the virus.
A separate union representing many of the more than 19,000 CBP Border Patrol officials operating on the border between access ports did not respond to requests for comment.
CBP will not say how many cases within the company are similar to occupational exposures, or how many have become inflamed in the particular El Paso domain.
In an emailed statement, CBP spokesman Nate Peeters said: “Verifying that COVID-19 exposures are related to the workplace is a challenge for any organization, especially when there is widespread network transmission.” .
The firm “has implemented a proactive multilevel to minimize our employees’ exposure to COVID-19 as they fulfill CBP’s critical national security mission,” Peeters said.
This includes the provision of non-public appliances and stricter cleaning rules for CBP installations.Employees are notified when an exposure has occurred at a CBP facility.
Read more: Border Patrol officers, agents say they have PPE, so why don’t they all use it?
“CBP is not a public fitness agency,” Peeters said in the statement.”CBP has provided detailed recommendations to everyone about COVID-19 symptoms and access to COVID-19-related fitness care by your doctor or fitness center.. These health care professionals are the most productive to evaluate, diagnose and treat others with COVID medically.-19.”
El Paso is home to thousands of port and border agents operating in western Texas and southern New Mexico, adding 2,160 Border Patrol officers assigned to El Paso and 1,386 port officers to THE CBP Field Operations Office in El Paso.
Federal Rep. Veronica Escobar, Democrat for El Paso, said the lack of internal verification for CBP reflected the Trump administration’s general lack of a national COVID-19 verification program.
“After 8 months and more than 167,000 deaths nationwide and 350 in El Paso, the Trump administration still does not have a national tactile search and detection method to save it and involve the spread of COVID-19,” Escobar said.
“This lack of leadership and the Senate’s refusal to pass the Heroes Act endanger the health and protection of other people in El Paso, adding federal frontline staff in our community, their families, and the vulnerable migrants they come into contact with.”
The Heroes Act provides greater investment to combat and treat COVID-19, as well as provide more emergency investments to federal agencies.
Reardon said the CBP union supports the Heroes Act that would guarantee CBP agents a premium for frontline work.
More: Fact Verification: The house bill would only temporarily be a must-have staff in the US.But it’s not the first time Illegally
“NTEU believes that CBP workers are already eligible for payment of harmful customs duties under existing law,” Reardon said.
“COVID-19 falls into the category of ‘virulent biological products’, to which exposure can cause illness or death, and therefore may be eligible for the remuneration of harmful rights.However, CBP did not accept.”
Lauren Villagran can be reached at [email protected].