Worldwide, the news is not good. At last count, Covid-19, a flu-like illness which originated in Wuhan, China, has taken the lives of almost 20,000 people, including almost 7,000 people in Italy. But there is some cause for hope. Out of the almost 400,000 reported cases at the end of March, 2020, just over 100,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus. .6
In the United States, the number of cases continues to grow. At the end of March, 2020 there are almost 50,000 reported cases, but fortunately, only just over 500 deaths. In New York, the hardest hit state, CNN reports there are “21,689 coronavirus cases and 157 deaths. New York City alone has 13,119 cases. At least 2,213 of those patients are hospitalized and 525 are in the intensive care unit.” .
Washington State is credited with having the first coronavirus patient in America, diagnosed in mid-January, a man in his 30’s who had recently returned from a trip to Central China. . It is believed that this “Patient Zero” may have unknowingly transmitted the disease upon his arrival in Seattle from Wuhan, before he even knew he had the illness. . At last count, Washington State has suffered 87 deaths from Covid-19. .
To date the patient, and whether or not he is a US citizen, resident alien, or illegally present in the country, has not been revealed.
Illinois has documented a dozen deaths and just over 1200 cases at the end of March, .while California reports about 2300 cases and 43 deaths. Meanwhile, the states with the least reported cases? West Virginia (20), Wyoming (29), South Dakota (30), North Dakota (34) and Alaska (36). .
There is obviously a big difference between the populations of California and New York, and that of West Virginia and Wyoming. There is also a greater population density which could account for the rapid spread of Covid-19 on the East and West coast. But could there be another factor at work here?
There is no denying that the areas of American hardest hit by the Coronavirus are all Sanctuary Cities and States.
If you read the mainstream media, the Trump Administration is once again making poor, undocumented peoples suffer for his racist policies in a time of crisis. According to The Guardian, “there is a widespread fear that the president’s policies have sown such fear of deportation and wariness of any contact with US authorities among immigrants – who also have greater difficulty getting healthcare – that many of them will not seek help if they fall sick with the virus.” This fear was echoed in The Independent, which stated that “Senate Democrats, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have raised concerns that immigrant communities will be deterred from seeking medical attention over fears of arrest, or of harming their chances of citizenship.”
As usual, not a single case is presented by either The Guardian or The Independent of an illegal immigrant who has failed to seek treatment for fear of being deported. More important, there is not a single case reported of anyone who sought treatment for the Coronavirus, who was then taken into custody by ICE upon their recovery.
In fact, Jerry Klinger in the Times of Israel has a more realistic view of the situation. He writes that “the uncontrolled flow of migrants, most of whom are economic migrants…is not a concern or crisis until the risk is unfettered, entrance to potential Coronavirus infected people…Blind admission of migrants, some of whom could be carrying disease…potentially to the good people of San Francisco, did not matter to the mother Sanctuary of Sanctuaries. But the Coronavirus…that has them scared.”
Consider, for instance, the debate over the Border Wall between Mexico and the United States. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Mexico had changed its tune, from providing safe passage for Central and South Americans on their way to the US border to using the Mexican National Guard to halt the progress of these same people, by force in some instances. At this point, Mexico has agreed to close their border to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. http
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In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed his firm opposition to cooperation with federal agents. By St Patrick’s Day, the Mayor had issued his own demand for increased federal aid to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
For sheer hypocrisy, few can beat the Mayor of Seattle, Jenny Durkan, who in April of 2019, told the President that her city was “not afraid of immigrants,” and bragged about all the programs Seattle had in place to assist immigrants. She also expressed her opposition to the increase in ICE raids in her city.
Yet, when Mayor Durkan announced that Seattle would spend $1.5 million on providing grants to “businesses owned by immigrants, refugees, people of color and non-English speakers in neighborhoods dealing with displacement and gentrification,” she never thanked the source of that money – the Federal Community Development Block Grant Program.
These Mayors, and the Governors of their states, bravely opposed the use of federal funds and federal law enforcement as they declared their support for Sanctuary policies. “All are welcome, legal and illegal,” they stated. But now that a little-understood and deadly disease has begun to take its toll on their populations, these same politicians stand with their hands out, begging the same federal government to exercise its power to the fullest.
The Coronavirus is proof you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have an open border, where no one is screened for foreign pathogens, and a healthy city and state. You cannot have a Sanctuary City or State, determined to make your own anti-federal policy, and then beg the same federal government for assistance when your own policy fails you.
Or can you? President Trump has not conditioned aid to Sanctuary Cities like New York and Los Angles on their reversing their policies. Instead, he has signed off on several bills all intended to ease the physical and economic suffering of all Americans at this time, without conditions.
So, who in fact is the “corrupt disgrace?” A Sanctuary City or State that failed to guard the health and safety of its citizens? The Mayor or Governor of those cities and states who now demands action from the government who’s laws they won’t follow? A strong argument can be made for the answer, “all of the above.”
This article was provided exclusively to the New York Analysis of Policy and Government by the distinguished Judge John H. Wilson (Ret.)
Illustration: Pixabay
