Louisiana AG sues Biden administration after Chinese migrant with rare, aggressive and drug-resistant tuberculosis entered US

Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed an “emergency lawsuit” against several Harris-Biden administration officials last week after a Chinese migrant with a rare form of tuberculosis illegally entered the US. The lawsuit seeks to prevent federal immigration officials from releasing “potentially infected detainees” that came in contact with the Chinese national – who has a “rare, aggressive, and drug-resistant form of tuberculosis which carries high mortality rates” – while she was in the custody of immigration and Customs Enforcement. “ICE has announced its intent to release potentially infected detainees from its two contract facilities [in Louisiana] — without being medically cleared by the Louisiana Department of Health — if an order requires release,” the complaint states.  “By ICE’s telling, its hands are tied once its immigration-based detention authority runs out,” the lawsuit continues, warning that migrants who may have contracted the disease will be released “onto Louisiana streets, its bus stations, and its airports.”“This is utterly wrong,” Murrill argues.“The Surgeon General’s standing orders require detainees at the two facilities in question to be held unless and until they are medically cleared by the Louisiana Department of Health.” “That is a quintessential exercise of the State’s sovereign prerogatives, the exercise of its police powers, and its obligation to protect the public health within its borders,” she adds, noting that the two facilities where the infected migrant was held are not owned by ICE. Murrill estimates that over 200 detainees and “untold numbers of non-detainees” may have been exposed to the disease as the TB-infected migrant was flown by ICE from California to Louisiana and then shuttled between a detention center and processing facility. The Chinese migrant – a woman whose name is redacted in the lawsuit – illegally crossed the US-Mexico border ...