More health problems than we’ve been told about

A December 9 article on Newsmax, Small Towns Grapple with Diseased Immigrants, gives us some new facts about refugee health problems that contradict what we were told by State Department officials and agency representatives.  After a worker died of TB at the Tyson Foods plant in Emporia, Kansas (which we reported on in November), health officials found 160 of the 500 Somali workers at Tyson had latent TB.

Local officials say the case represents only a small part of the growing problem of foreign-born, unassimilated communities with high rates of communicable diseases such as TB and HIV. Many say they need help from Washington, which has been silent on the issue for too long.

“We have not really gotten Congress to engage, which I would like to see occur,” Peggy Mast, an 11-year Republican state representative from Kansas whose district includes Emporia, tells Newsmax. “I have talked with some of the offices and they think it is more of a state issue . . .”

 We were told health issues were at the top of the agenda for the State Department and the agencies. But:

Mandatory health screenings are frequently put off for several months after the immigrants’ arrival. Those who blend into the secretive, tight-knit Somali community often do not resurface to be tested for communicable disease, officials complain.

Peggy Mast is an admirable politician — a legislator who looks out for the people in her district, even at the risk of being politically incorrect and displeasing the largest employer in Emporia, Tyson Foods.

Mast says that all levels of government need to be more pro-active in dealing with the issue of immigration workers, as it has opened up many additional areas of concerns including community safety, cultural clashes, and a long-term financial drain on communities where unskilled immigrants congregate for employment.

“From what I hear, I don’t think Kansas is unique in this,” Mast, 59, said. “These individuals are coming in with latent TB and HIV. This should not be. We are putting the general population at risk.”

Mast said the TB infections in the Somali community Emporia, a city of 28,000 people, the third highest TB rate in Kansas.

“[The Somali community] is dealing with active cases now,” she tells Newsmax. “This population is extremely difficult to track and it is hard to treat them. You have to make sure they are compliant with the medication and make sure they finish it up.”

Peggy Mast said the federal government should conduct more thorough health screenings before allowing refugees into the U.S. And she said there should be “mandatory cultural education to help refugees assimilate.” Yes! She talked to the district’s Congressman, Jerry Moran, about the problems, but he told her that health and safety issues were the state’s responsibility, not the federal government’s.

She said she received more help from the mayor of Lewiston, Maine, a city of 36,000 that has a similar enclave of 1,200 Somali refugees — with 50 percent of them unemployed.

“Lewiston has asked Congress for more funding,” Mast says. “We look down the road and see the problems they can create. Unemployed single males with nothing to do.”

So the federal government can bring in as many refugees as Congress decides on, and dump them into small cities all across America, and leave state and local officials to deal with the huge problems this creates, and the local citizens to their disrupted and increasingly dangerous lives. We hope Peggy Mast stays on the issue, and holds some people to account.

For more on health issues  involving refugees see our entire health category (which contains posts on the taboo topic of female genital mutilation)  here.

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