# Can we all agree that this is reason enough to have the border locked down and secure? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 23, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466 "2014-06-23T17:57:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/41 "2014-06-23T20:22:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What kind of physical screenings do Canadians get when they cross the border? You know what’s truly a wonder? Your _staunch_ unwillingness/inability to address what I actually posted. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/42 "2014-06-23T20:22:58Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What kind of physical screenings do Canadians get when they cross the border? Heck, I crossed into Vermont on Saturday for the afternoon. I got lectured for not having my passport, but I got in anyway. No turning my head and coughing or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/43 "2014-06-23T20:28:09Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > That seems like the sensible thing to do. If you’d like to repost your list with the corresponding quotes from the article, I’d be interested in addressing them. > > Don’t hurry, though, as I have to run now. Will be back later. Bolded parts are outright false or require faith in the authority of the speaker, which none of us should have for these folks. Bracketed parts are what I think the article is trying to imply, and which is false: > [@](#): > > In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Dr. Jane Orient, an internal medicine specialist and the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), said that **by admitting these huge groups of children who come from countries where medical screenings are minimal and hygiene is poor, the United States is at risk for epidemics of serious diseases and viruses that the nation has not seen in years**. > > “Tuberculosis (TB) is the single most dangerous disease because it is highly contagious and can be easily picked up at the mall, at a school, or on the bus,” Orient told Breitbart News. “Cases coming from south of the U.S. border can be very resistant to medications. They don’t respond to traditional antibiotics, and the few drugs they may respond to are often toxic, with lots of side effects.” \*\*[All this says is that an illegal immigrant might have MDR-TB, which is hard to treat. That’s true, but obviously it is trying to imply more, which is that illegals pose some special threat as to MDR-TB–that fact is not in evidence.] > \*\* > **“Legal immigrants have always been required to undergo health screenings,”** Orient continued, “ **but these kids coming have no medical screenings and no vaccine records. They’re likely coming here with a number of infectious diseases that will spread like wildfire.”** > > \ > > Writing at The Monitor on Friday, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a physician with practices in both Tucson and Dallas, agreed with Orient. She noted that the “invisible travelers” coming across the U.S. border, in addition to TB and measles, include hepatitis, malaria, Chagas disease – a parasitic infection – and dengue fever. > **“A public health crisis, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime, is looming,” Vliet stated.** > > Hardest hit by exposures to these difficult-to-treat diseases will be elderly, children, immunosuppressed cancer patients, and patients with chronic lung disease or congestive heart failure. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is the most serious risk, but even diseases like measles can cause severe complications and death. > > “Other illnesses, along with scabies and head lice, also thrive as children are transported by bus and herded into crowded shelters – courtesy of the federal government,” wrote Vliet. “And treatment costs are borne by taxpayers.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/44 "2014-06-23T20:28:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What kind of physical screenings do Canadians get when they cross the border? Whoopsy! My mistake-the title says “border”, not “borders”. I guess the topic isn’t our paler cousins to the North. I will admit that there might be good reason to close our _borders_, though-to stop our spreading preventable diseases to other countries that don’t have rabid anti-vax groups…like the one **magellan01** uses as the source for this thread’s topic. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/45 "2014-06-23T20:30:54Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You know what’s truly a wonder? Your _staunch_ unwillingness/inability to address what I actually posted. I am giving it exactly the attention it deserves. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/46 "2014-06-23T20:33:13Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Wait—if the borders are open, anyone can just walk across and we wouldn’t know anything about them. Now, I take it, through your uses of “freer” you’re not actually recommending a scenario like that. So that brings us back to having borders that are 100% secure. Whether we let in 0 people or an unlimited number of people is a different question. The question in the OP goes not to how many people should we allow to immigrate each year, but to shouldn’t we take the steps necessary to ensure that we can check anyone who does come over? WHen has any nation ever had borders that are 100% secure? The East Germans, with the Berlin Wall, the exclusion zone, and terrain far more hospitable to guards/fences/surveillance than the desert southwest, couldn’t do it; North Korea can’t either (the Chinese authorities have regular drives to remove North Koreans who slipped across the border illegally). The history of border control along the US/Mexico frontier is mostly “block 'em here, so they move over there”; as enforcement steps up in any one sector, illegals move to a different location or a different mode of travel, in a never-ending game of catch-up. Your question that “shouldn’t we take the steps necessary” presupposes that there ARE steps that could provide absolute security, and I disagree with that basic premise. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/47 "2014-06-23T20:36:33Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Do you not realize that this has nothing to do with the OP? Sure it does. It provides something you say you want, but it does it for a reason that actually makes sense- a reason that doesn’t discredited rantings by immigration opponents. > [@](#): > > See my response to **XT**. Once you take out the bit about open borders - which **XT** didn’t actually say he wanted - your response to **XT** didn’t actually respond to **XT** all that much. Here’s what I think this comes down to: yes, it makes sense to check people’s health when they come into the country. But not because we’re not facing a plague brought over the border by illegal immigrants (we are not). If you want a system that results in quality checkups, you need new border policies- including an immigration system that isn’t so penal, because people will have to want to get checked out. If people are afraid of being caught by the authorities, they’re going to try to duck the system. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/48 "2014-06-23T20:53:37Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I support what I posted about. That is all. Given the actual article I cited and the actual words of the actual doctors cited, do you agree that there is a legitimate concern or not? No. I can’t agree. It is pretty clear that the AAPS is full of ideologues and it is not clear where they are getting their data. I have surfed around on the CDC site for a while and am having a hard time determining how much of a threat immigrants actually are. Looking at the CDC data and [this report](http://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R40570.pdf) (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service, it looks like the CDC is more worried about influenza coming from Asia than stuff coming from Mexico. Can you perhaps post some data that would make a reasonable person believe there is a concern instead of just the rambling of some apparent ideologues and an appeal to authority? For great debates and for advocating a policy that cuts us off internationally in this age of globalization, I would expect you to have a source with some science behind it. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/49 "2014-06-23T21:30:01Z")
> [@](#): > > **Can we all agree that this is reason enough to have the border locked down and secure?** No, its not. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/50 "2014-06-23T22:13:21Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > The history of border control along the US/Mexico frontier is mostly “block 'em here, so they move over there”; as enforcement steps up in any one sector, illegals move to a different location or a different mode of travel, in a never-ending game of catch-up. Same goes for Gaza. Israel has walled off the entire area and there’s a million checkpoints at what few gates the wall has. Boats can’t get away with anything, either. Result ? Tunnels. Tunnels everywhere. BTW, **Magellan** , have you ever watched \*Weeds \*by any chance ? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/51 "2014-06-23T22:35:56Z")
Wouldn’t this be true of travellers to and from countries with poorer-than-the-US health situations? Should you be instituting health screenings and mandatory vaccination documentation for all legal border crossings/flights, including for American citizens? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/52 "2014-06-23T22:53:46Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Seems to me this is why we should open up immigration more, not lock down the borders. If we allowed people to come into the US legally then we could health check and process them much better…and help treat their issues before they integrate into our society. Yes and no. Lock down the borders, but make it easier to come in legally for health checks, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/53 "2014-06-23T23:21:11Z")
> [@](#): > > In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Dr. Jane Orient, an internal medicine specialist and the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), said that by admitting these huge groups of children who come from countries where medical screenings are minimal and hygiene is poor, the United States is at risk for epidemics of serious diseases and viruses that the nation has not seen in years. Well, maybe if we vaccinated our OWN people more reliably this wouldn’t be such a concern. Also, as noted, plenty of other countries have BETTER vaccination rates than the US because of public health systems open to all (not just the middle-class on up) and fewer exceptions to vaccination due to nutball reasons. > [@](#): > > “Tuberculosis (TB) is the single most dangerous disease because it is highly contagious and can be easily picked up at the mall, at a school, or on the bus,” Orient told Breitbart News. “Cases coming from south of the U.S. border can be very resistant to medications. They don’t respond to traditional antibiotics, and the few drugs they may respond to are often toxic, with lots of side effects.” If TB was THAT contagious we’d all have it. There is plenty of TB here in the US. I worked at a clinic for four years with plenty of patients with TB and all sorts of icky things, never caught any of it (we were tested regularly). Only one person on staff ever turned up with positive antibodies and she took her course of medication as directed, never showed any symptoms or illness. The MDR stuff is bad, but if we’re screening these kids we can find those cases and property deal with them. This is yet another case of painting foreigners as diseased and threatening, which has been going on since forever. > [@](#): > > Writing at The Monitor on Friday, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a physician with practices in both Tucson and Dallas, agreed with Orient. She noted that the “invisible travelers” coming across the U.S. border, in addition to TB and measles, include hepatitis, malaria, Chagas disease – a parasitic infection – and dengue fever. Newsflash - we already have that here, not just from illegal aliens but also legal foreigners, tourists, and our own people returning from overseas, the last group being ones we don’t/can’t keep out. Chagas disease are endemic to kissing bugs, which do not live in North America so it’s not going to get established in the US. We shouldn’t have measles here, except for the jackasses who are needlessly afraid to vaccinate their children so that threat is our own damn fault. > [@](#): > > Drug-resistant tuberculosis is the most serious risk, but even diseases like measles can cause severe complications and death. Which is exactly why we need to tighten up the vaccination requirements and eliminate non-medical loopholes. For that matter there IS a TB vaccine, as well as hepatitis vaccines. Maybe we should make more use of them. > [@](#): > > “Other illnesses, along with scabies and head lice, also thrive as children are transported by bus and herded into crowded shelters – courtesy of the federal government,” wrote Vliet. “And treatment costs are borne by taxpayers.” Scabies and head lice are rampant among our own citizens, from the homeless to people in hospitals and nursing homes to children in school. I don’t know about this “taxpayers bearing the costs” thing - we sure as hell don’t help out our own when they catch these things. Maybe we should so we don’t spread them to new immigrants or when traveling aboard. Not that the treatment for either is that horrific. Back at that clinic I mentioned, with the homeless and the non-hygienic, I did catch scabies off the clients. Easily treated. HAVING scabies is an ordeal, getting them treated is sweat relief. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/54 "2014-06-23T23:23:36Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Wouldn’t this be true of travellers to and from countries with poorer-than-the-US health situations? Should you be instituting health screenings and mandatory vaccination documentation for all legal border crossings/flights, including for American citizens? As long as you’re OK with the possibility that a lot of countries with national health systems that treat rich and poor alike might start restricting US visitors based on how many of our citizens DON’T get appropriate treatment or preventive care due to financial issues running into our private healthcare “system”. As noted - even a country like Mexico, with a buttload of problems and not nearly as much wealth as the US still manages to vaccinate their kid more reliably than we do. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/55 "2014-06-24T02:25:56Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Okay. But what about the specific claims delivered by the doctors in the OP? Also, while you might not like these guys, do you think every claim they may utter is a wrong-headed? If it turns out that the doctor is Pro-Choice, should that position be categorized as wrong-headed, too? > > Finally, do you really think the Mother Jones has no poetical bent? Wait, are you saying “don’t consider the source, consider the information” AND “consider the source” in the same post? Please clarify if not! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/56 "2014-06-24T02:29:04Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > On Oct 25, 2008 the AAPS website published an editorial implying that Barack Obama was using Neuro-linguistic Programming, “a covert form of hypnosis”, to coerce people to vote for him in his 2008 presidential campaign.[21] Yeah, well, guess what? [It don’t work.](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/57 "2014-06-24T02:34:31Z")
It’s a good reason to take back control of the border from organized crime. And that can best be done by\* liberalizing \*visas. As we have seen with the recent avocado and lime shortages, Mexican organized crime looks for markets where it can exploit scarcity to charge a high price and line its pockets. Liberalizing visas, letting migrants in with little more than a quick background screening for diseases, maybe some vaccinations and some quick cultural orientation classes, would collapse the coyotes’ market. And we could catch any of these migrants that have Tb pretty quickly. Not the answer OP wanted, I imagine, but there it is. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/58 "2014-06-24T02:40:16Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It has been a concern with illegals doing in for quite a few years now. Yes, we all remember the leprosy threat. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/59 "2014-06-24T02:41:24Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Don’t you ever get tired of this old game of loping for conservative leanings and trying to discredit the the facts they relay? The most important piece of information in any message is the name of the messenger. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466/60 "2014-06-24T02:43:33Z")
Heck, just treat the U.S. like a reverse Roach Motel. Nobody gets in, and if you leave you can’t return. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-all-agree-that-this-is-reason-enough-to-have-the-border-locked-down-and-secure/691466.md?page=4)