Louisiana is suing top U.S. law enforcement officials after a Chinese migrant entered the state illegally and may have exposed hundreds of people to a deadly strain of tuberculosis.
He lawsuit specifically names Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and claims that ‘through his official capacity’ as security secretary he allegedly allowed the sick detainee to travel through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.
The lawsuit claims Louisiana is in an “emergency situation” because the Chinese citizen has “a rare, aggressive, drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, which carries high mortality rates.”
The state said the migrant traveled from Louisiana facilities in Monroe, Basile and Lafayette, exposing more than 200 detainees and “an untold number of non-detainees.”
The state of Louisiana is suing US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (pictured) for his alleged mismanagement of the transportation of a Chinese migrant infected with a rare form of tuberculosis.
The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detention centers are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s Office is requiring ICE to medically clear detainees before they leave detention centers to prevent tuberculosis from spreading more widely.
Local point of sale WDSU reported that, according to sources, ICE is refusing to comply with this, which triggered the lawsuit.
Now, a federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order to keep the Chinese national in custody while the state works to resolve the situation.
The lawsuit against Mayorkas is ongoing in federal court.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said at a news conference: “At this time, we have no indication that the public is in danger.”
The lawsuit, which has hidden many personal details of the Chinese migrant, claims that they traveled from their home to Mexico, where they illegally crossed the United States border. The migrant was detained in California in July 2024.
Officials then took the migrant on a plane with 100 other detainees to Alexandria, Louisiana, where they then boarded a bus with 40 other people and took them to Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe.
The lawsuit claims that some of those 40 people have since been deported, transferred or released.
The Chinese national was tested for tuberculosis upon arrival in Richwood and, three days later, the results “were highly positive.”
Health officials consider tuberculosis (TB) to be serious. It is an infection of the lungs that occurs when a person inhales the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
It can also infect the brain, kidneys and spine.
The bacteria that cause tuberculosis are spread from person to person through small airborne droplets released when coughing and sneezing.
It used to be one of the deadliest diseases in the world, and the first known cases date back to the beginning of human history.
But in areas of the world where people can be vaccinated, screened, diagnosed early and treated against infection, treatment success can be close to 90 percent.
However, tuberculosis grows slowly and may not be detected until eight to ten weeks after exposure, allowing it to spread unknowingly. It is difficult to detect in the early stages, but symptoms include a persistent cough, coughing up blood, night sweats, weight loss and fever.
In this case, the migrant supposedly has “drug-resistant” tuberculosis, or tuberculosis bacteria that are resistant to at least one of the most effective tuberculosis medications and treatment regimens.
According to the NIHThere were 9,615 cases of tuberculosis in the US last year, a 16 percent increase from 2022 and an eight percent increase from the pre-pandemic count in 2019.
Overall, the tuberculosis rate increased by 15 percent, from 2.5 cases per 100,000 people in 2022 to 2.9 cases per 100,000 people in 2023.
A separate report from NIH named China as one of the 30 countries with a high burden of tuberculosis in the world. The tuberculosis incidence rate fell by 43.1 percent between 1990 (130 cases per 100,000 people) and 2010 (74 cases per 100,000 people).
In 2019, there were about 833,000 new cases of tuberculosis in China, with a tuberculosis incidence rate of 58 cases per 100,000 people.
Additionally, China has the highest number of latent tuberculosis infections (cases where a person is infected with the bacteria but does not have the disease) in the world, with approximately 350 million infections at risk of becoming active cases. of tuberculosis.
