Physicians wanting to give detained migrants flu shots turned away by immigration authorities

published 11 December 2019

Doctors who have been calling on the government to provide flu shots to detained migrant children were turned away from a Customs and Border Protection facility in San Diego, California, on Monday.

The group of about 60 doctors and advocates told Customs and Border Protection they could set up a free flu shot clinic for migrants, with 120 doses of the vaccine at the ready. At least three children in immigration custody have died from the flu this year, including a 16-year-old from Guatemala, and the physicians first offered to set up the clinic last month.

Customs and Border Protection said it is not "feasible" for the outside doctors to provide medical care to detained migrants, as the agency is not supposed to hold people for more than 72 hours and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which operates long-term detention facilities, offers its own medical services. Records show that many migrant children and adults have been held at Customs and Border Protection facilities for more than 72 hours, with some detained for several weeks.

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On Twitter, the Department of Homeland Security's press secretary called the doctors a "random group of radical political activists." The physicians don't consider wanting to keep people alive a radical act. "More people will die without the vaccine," Dr. Hannah Janeway told The Guardian. "There's no doubt. They are being locked in cages in cold weather together, without any vaccination, in a year that is supposed to bring a horrible flu epidemic."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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