Swine Flu: Conservatives Blame Immigrants

Conservative media hosts, including Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck, have placed the blame for the spread of swine flu to the United States squarely on the shoulders of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Some even suggested yesterday that Mexicans were purposefully carrying the virus across the border to sabotage the United States.

There's no basis for either claim -- in fact, news reports and health officials suggest that Americans traveling to Mexico likely carried the disease home. For example, several students at the infected school in New York had recently come back from a spring break trip to Cancun.

Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, M.D., the interim deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's science and public health program, suggested that Americans who visited Mexico recently brought the disease back with them: "I know that we have confirmation of disease in people who have traveled to Mexico, and I don't know the numbers, but I know that that is definitely the case in some of our cases, and that's an important factor to consider." Media reports indicate that U.S. swine flu victims had recently traveled to Mexico.

Media Matters documents:

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that stricter border control was not necessary at this time. That would be a very, very heavy cost for what epidemiologists tells us would be marginal" in terms of containing the virus, she said on NBC's "Today" show.

Become a fan of HuffPost Politics on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Comments

[timberdoodle]

Have you heard the news there are a number of polling companies taking surveys to see if anyone has heard anything sensible coming from the Republicans but so far they haven't been able to locate a single instance where that has happened.

[smileatfear]

One sensible thing I've heard is that (former) republican Arlen Specter has decided to become a Democrat.

[PoliticalAmazon]

An outbreak of a major infectious disease in America is long overdue. Every disease in the world is only one plane-flight away from us.

The fault for us not having a plan in place to immediately inact lies in the GOP for stripping the measure Obama wanted in his stimulus bill.

To try to blame it on immigrants is foolish. It was spread to New Zealand and Israel by tourists returing from Mexico.

It would be like blaming floods on rain. You know floods are possible with rain. It is your job to prepare for the floods, not do nothing and then sit there and impotently whine when floods occur.

[harriettubman]

Like HIV?

[smileatfear]

Well, yes. Reagan did sit back and encourage people to blame homosexuals for HIV and refused to have the government fund research on it.

[mdlw]

I was quite surprised by the media coverage given this particular strain of flu. I applaud the CDC and the Obama administration and others for tackling it so promptly. And the MSM for being on top of this issue. Great work folks!

Considering the amount of folks that travel via airplanes around this world on a daily basis, pointing fingers at a group of folks seems counter-productive. Heck, even ol' Rush tried to blame the flu on Obama...and the earthquake, too! LOL

Methinks Beck and those like-minded spew words to promote fear and hostility instead of giving credit due. Isolationism comes to mind..

[harriettubman]

They don't need to point fingers in general but the U.S. does need to know where this flu started so they can do something about it. It may be a hot bed for other infectious diseases. I get irritated when people say we don't need to know how or where they were infected with HIV. Yes, we do so it can be prevented.

[lis60]

This is really terrible! How could it possibly be there fault. I know they have "first amendment rights" but I really don't think some of what they say is very good for our country. I am sick of their anger and their negativity towards other people who have different beliefs then them. This is just disgusting......

[gramma61]

Republicans have a tent.
Democrats have a home.

[jimrs6]

They say the same thing about you.

[Womanvoter4Obama]

Is it the immigrants that should be blamed for anyone carrying this across the border or greedy Americans who refuse to pay decent wages? You have to acknowledge you've given them a reason to be here...and a lot of you are rich Republicans..and Dems.

[DubyaGump]

Michelle Princess, did you forget that you were born to immigrant parents.

[cariintexas]

Where was Malkin when there were out breaks of Asian flu, Hong Kong flu and YES the bird flu.

[truthartbeauty]

mexico is already blamming us

[PoliticalAmazon]

I'd love to see the logic for that.

It appeared in Mexico first and, by the time they started reporting cases, people had already become significantly sick that they required treatment at a hospital (Mexico gets its numbers from hospitals, and does not include outpatient clinics).

The fact that an infectious disease occurred and has been transmitted to others is nobody's fault. This is something that happens, and something we need to plan for so we can immediately inact controls to stop the spread of the illness (a delay of 2 hours in implementing a quarantine can result in an accumulative HUGE increase in the number of infected people).

What is somebody's fault is that, despite DECADES of epidemiologists begging for a comprehensive plan to be designed so as to be ready to launch at a moment's notice, nothing has been done.

Obama was the first president to both recognize the seriousness of the threat, and place a request for funding in a bll submitted to Congress.

It was the GOP who stripped it from the bill (Senator Collins, to be specific).

So if anyone is looking for fault, blame Susan Collins and the GOP.

[harriettubman]

They blame EVERYTHING on the U.S.--their cartels, out of control violence, gangs, their poverty, insatiable demand for *d*r*u*g*s, you name it. They've never taken responsibilty for anything!!!

[redwhiteandblue22]

It is Americans who have the insatiable demand for the drugs that they sell. And it's Americans who supply weapons to the drug lords. It takes two to tango. And until Obama became president, the U.S. hadn't taken responsibility for anything either. You should read the book Chavez gave Obama. It would be quite enlightening.

[sepiasiren]

Oh yeah--and America is so good about owning up to their own past and history...

[jorge4u]

And blaming the US is nonsense.

[Horror-Safari Sun]

I'm trying to look at this in an objective matter and keeping my mind open to all possibilities. If illegal aliens in Mexico caused this, how is it exactly that china and those in the middle east are catching it?

[yoshi99]

The Mezzicans are taking over the WORLD, I tell you! THE WORLD! Soon you'll have to push 2 for English and all sandwiches will be replaced with tacos and the only lousy cheap beer will be Corona and the United States will turn into Venezuela. The end.

[cariintexas]

Do you even know how many people from foreign countries go to Mexico just to sneak across the border into our country? We see it all the time on our local news here in TX. Yet the republicans blame the Mexican people. I am against illegal immigration, HOWEVER it should be across the board. ALL illegal immigrants.

[nicole44]

travelers. i live in Ohio near cleveland and a 3rd grader in a town about a 1hr away is the first case in the state. and this was caught 2-3 days ago by the news. He had been to Mexico with his family on vacation and they went to a farm and a petting zoo while there. I am sure those people in those countries carried it over on the plane. I dont understand why people get so mad about this. no one through a fit when people said that sars came from china... cause it did. i think people are so politically correct these days and hyper sensative that sometimes stating the obvious sounds like a racial insult.

[redwhiteandblue22]

No one is complaining about about epidemiologists attributing the source of the outbreak to Mexico (except the Mexican government). What this article and many people on this board are complaining about is that conservative commentators are blaming Mexican immigrants for bringing the disease into the U.S., when it was probably American tourists visiting Mexico that brought the flu back to the U.S. with them. See the difference?

[sepiasiren]

It is not that people are not saying it came from Mexico--but rather the idiots are sayign that illegal immigrants on foot spread the disease when as you yourself stated, you friend traveled there and brought it back via airplane.

And there were some folks who did attack Asians and blamed them fro SARS as well..

People tend to freak and look fro someone to blame in these situations...

[PoliticalAmazon]

Well, let's see--what would the GOP say is the cause then?

Oh, I know: "Because it is part avian (bird) flu, the viruses FLEW to China."

Clearly, air travel is and will be a significant route of transmission from country to country.

This is from a medical/vetinary infectiious disease group to which I belong:

------------

Nearly 2 billion people travel by commercial air each year, according to an article recently published in The Lancet. Think about that in the context of a couple other stories that made the news in the past month:
• A new, potentially deadly "swine flu" that can be transmitted human-to-human has been identified in Mexico, the U.S. and several other countries.
• Increasing numbers of California parents are choosing to send their children to kindergarten without routine vaccinations, echoing trends increasingly seen around the world.
• London is experiencing a surprising rise in “Victorian era” infections, including typhoid, whooping cough and scarlet fever.
• Polio virus may be on the rise on the Horn of Africa. Several cases recently were identified in Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. Luckily the total number of cases currently remains small....

----------­----------

Do 2 billion illegal aliens enter America each year? I don't think so.

[plwood01]

That is happening because anyone who has a passport can travel to any corner of the world in between 12 to 24 hours! Simple as that...now would you have a problem with any government stopping your ability to travel especially if you were not ill? Remember that White guy from Georgia who was traveling with an untreatable strain of TB? He went to Rome, got married and went on his honeymoon after the authorities told him to not travel? Furthermore, the illness would not have spread had the New York seniors stayed away from the areas in Mexico that were on the CDC alert website that tells people about what is going on in other countries if you bother to check that out before leaving the country. Had they done that before going on their Spring Break, the illness would have been contained. Officials at CDc have determined that the spread of the Swine Flu was due to the reentry of Citizens coming home from Cancun carrying the illness and when they got back they came down with the symptoms and were tested to determine whether or not they had the Swine version of the flu. The Mexican people were trying to contain the illness however, White American students probably refused to wear the masks, or take heed to the announcements and warnings. YOu know how entitled people operate; the GOP shows us everyday! Kids believe they are invincible and would not take the Mexicans word for it anyway!

[sepiasiren]

Wonderful point--the Rethugs don't understand the concept of "vectors" and how modern diseases spread on a global level--usually via travel...

[rain33]

let me see-wild nut conservatives being racists,pr­ejudice,hy­pocrites, etc destroying poor folks minds about saving money instead getting them to be successful and being ahead of the business.now, they're blaming immigrants for everything in our country and causing the swine flu epidemic..oh oh i see but your party won't confirmed kathleen sellibus as hhs.bunch of fools.i'm sick of them now!

[keepemhonest]

Gee ... If Michelle & Glenn think its bec. of undocumented immigrants ... does this mean they are mad a Bush for keeping the border WIDE OPEN ... and ... in 2006 Bush INSISTED that Republicans pass bills clearing the path for undocumented immigrants to be on a path to US Citizenship ... and ... The 2006 Republicans GAVE Bush exactly that ... hmmm... do either one remember those facts?

[Taz2]

The talking heads of the right-wing are pushing more and more Moderate Republicans away!!
It’s time to put Country and People before Party, they just don get it!!
Haven’t they realized that Name-calling and blaming everyone is "Not Working" they have no credibility, no ideas, "They just Whine and Complain", this is not the party of Reagan, this is something else and it’s ugly!

[lilacluvr]

Actually, Reagan was not all that different from these current conservatives. His criteria was not ethnicity but how much money does a person have. Reagan started the ball rolling and George W. Bush kept it up. Hurrican Katrina was not about black vs white but rich vs poor.

[MGhamma]

This should go over well with the Hispanic voters.

[azriel]

what the heck does that mean? Hispanic voters are not only Mexican...Hispanic Americans come from a multitide of Heritages... I am not saying you do--but --I dont like the idea that someone belongining to a particular ethnic group has to march lock--step --with whatever ideas the leaders of the movement puts out as a platform. Thats like saying I as a white person voted for Bush beacuse he's white. It's non-sense. Hispanic Americans belong to many different parties --and I would like to think that their decisions are made just like everyone elses--what is best for their families, their prosperity, and what's best for the nation...Sometimes on certain issues we have to stay away from tribalism!

[rowzeer]

The Repubs have never respected the Hispanic/Latino voter. My son's father in law is from Cuba and he is of the opinion that Repubs only court the Cubans b/c many of the well established who came over right after the revolution were the ones with money, the elite, the ruling class and that's why they fit right in with the Repubs.

[plwood01]

This was a digg against Mexican immigrants by the GOP who do not feel that they have to do anything to garner HIspanic votes...they feel the same way about African American votes also, or they would have included themselves in debates that were held at traditionally Black colleges so that both groups had a place to here about the platforms that were important to these groups... All Americans are descendents of immigrants except the Native Americans who are totally written out of our politics by the GOP, so this is something that is germane to their policies which are in keeping with the ideas and issues that are important to one group, Southern Whites! There is nothing wrong with that as long as they realize that they will no longer have a say in the governance of our country and just as they tried to say about Obama being for African Americans and we voted for him because he was black and not the best candidate...most of Americans believe that the Republican party actually wants to keep that tact and that in turn will deem them irrelevant to all other groups in the country who do not believe in such nonsense and voted our candidate in President Barack Obama.

[Darthwave]

Wow.. come on like you didn't see this coming. I guess the GOP couldn't find a valid reason to blame Blacks, Jews, or Homosexuals and it started in Mexico so they will blame immigrants. Watch and see the next time immigration reform comes up for debate how long it takes (Anchor Baby) Malkin or Glenn Beck to bring up swine flu.

[ztck5356]

You mean they don't blame Clinton and the Democrats? OMG!!!! What is that party coming to?

[jorge4u]

Well, at the pace the GOP is going, the Party will be relevant to only one group: white southerners.

[DubyaGump]

With the exception of Michelle Malkin

[rowzeer]

She is a self hater....she wishes she was white