In one of Donald Trump’s one -day executive orders and announcements, he not only cited safety and national security as one of the reasons for breaking against immigration. Health.
This is not the first time the president has used public health to prevent immigration. In the early days of the epidemic disease, their administration used an inactive war law since 1944, known Title 42Demand health sanctions to return refugees to the US Mexico border. During the Biden administration, it was expired in 2023, but experts believe it can be restored like Trump’s advisers. According to the notifications Spend months in an attempt to find a disease that will help them close the border.
The United States has a long history of surrendering to the disease against immigrants. To better understand this, the Guardian spoke with Columbia University historian Merlin ChukwaniThose who study the history of social health and ethnic inequalities, how to help close the border can be re -employed, the risk of bird flu is at risk and these immigrant communities are of migrant communities. How can it be used against? The interview has been lightly edited for clear and length.
In the recent one of President Trump AnnouncementsHe cited public health as one of the reasons for breaking immigration. How can it play during its second administration?
The title 42 was the thing that took off the shelf during its last period. Stephen Miller It is great to go through the old rules and to take them out of the specific context that was made and used for them. So he found something that could be made a weapon. We know that there were many immigrants, nutrients, especially against Chinese and Asians, more widespread, from the White House coming from the White House “China virus“. In the past few years many major cities have really risked the rhetoric of immigrant crisis and because of its administration’s immigration and its dangers due to a general rigorous approach [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Raid, I am once again worried that if he can find a sickness and a goat, it can be really dirty.
The fear of illness against immigrants or the use of “attacks” is a long tradition in the United States. How does this have an impact on communities that are sacrificed by politicians and other leaders?
The disease is used as a rational status for all kinds of oppressive things, and they are immigrants and African Americans who have a short ending. In Jim Croy Baltimore, in extreme cases, the spread of tuberculosis was used to justify the separation ordinance. In San Francisco Coc) In the early 1900s, infectious disease was used to justify incredibly strict inspection. Most Chinese migrants came through Angel Island And during the inspection, they were poured and punctured. In the US, ReturnWhere the government will force people to put people on buses and send them back to Mexico, it was like a soft form of exile and had a rational disease. Foreign policy decisions and advanced public health decisions, especially when a foreign curse is a scene, has a booming effect on the population. Covid There was an example of this.
Health is a public specialist Said We’re not doing enough To counter Bird flu and other risks. Trump The administration has already expelled the United States from the future of the World Health Organization and the White House Offers off Global outbreak Preparation and Reply Have a policy Questionable. How do you feel like this?
I am very nervous. The Biden administration was disturbing to me in terms of public words about epidemic diseases, as Biden went on TV and said Global outbreak It was over. The next generation vaccines have minimized invested and the modeling of wearing masks in crowded places has ended. You already have a president who at least accepted the basic scientific consensus on the illness and how it spreads, so now President Trump, who rejects scientific consensus in some ways, many Is alarming.
I am very upset Avenue FluWhich has been a threat for 20 years. This is the closest to human spread from human beings. If that were to happen, based on its first period and during its record, I would be very upset about the seriousness with which it takes it. No administration has done a great job of keeping infectious illnesses and pandemic diseases at the forefront of public attention, so I think there is a common fatigue from the public to accept things like sanctions.
If Robert F Kennedy JRThe skeptic of a vaccine that has the history of spreading false medical ideas, is confirmed as secretary health, what can be the implications of the public health?
There is a declining confidence in vaccination. If you see the Booster Rate Or the annual shot for the covide vaccine, it is surprisingly low, such as 20-25 %. And it is with a president who believed in vaccines and was great to advertise and continue public subsidy for people who cannot afford them. I really worry that anyone who is the American face of the anti -vaccine movement can really damage vaccination efforts in a spill over effect.
How can these bird flu and vaccine suspicions play in the hands of Trump’s anti -immigrant stance, especially when it comes to people working in fields or agriculture?
I could see someone whose statements and words about viruses, which are not always anchored in the best evidence, who resort to Invendo and Innovative claims that somehow about the Avi flu. The story leads to the creation from somewhere that is not the United States. Given the makeup of who is more likely to get the House flu, these are the people who have direct contact with poultry in the fields. Many of them are very non -documentary workers or immigrants. If a high proportion of some of the initial cases are any kind of non -white immigrants, I can easily see that such roughness that has occurred with Covade and with other infectious diseases in history Also happened.
