This article and its title have been revised for clarity and emphasis. Roughly a third of the caravan is reportedly being treated for health-related issues, not for necessarily being “sick.”
Thousands of migrants marched from Central America to the U.S. border over the last six weeks, but many of them are suffering from health issues, including respiratory infections, tuberculosis, chickenpox and HIV.
Of the 6,000 migrants gathered in Tijuana just south of the U.S. border near San Diego, more than a third of them (2,267) are being treated for health-related issues, a spokesman for Tijuana’s Health Department told Fox News.
There are three confirmed cases of tuberculosis, four cases of HIV/AIDS and four separate cases of chickenpox, the spokesman said.
At least 101 migrants have lice and multiple instances of skin infections, the department’s data shows.
There’s also a threat of Hepatitis outbreak due to unsanitary conditions, the spokesman said. The thousands of migrants are being sheltered at the Benito Juarez Sports Complex near the San Ysidro U.S.-Mexico Port of Entry, despite the place being capable of providing for 1,000 people.
The location also has only 35 portable bathrooms. A sign reading “No Spitting” was put up, as coughing and spitting by migrants are rampant in the shelter.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Tijuana said Tuesday that the city cannot afford to help the migrants that are there. “We won’t compromise the resources of the residents of Tijuana,” Juan Manuel Gastelum said during a press conference, noting that the city is spending some $30,000 a day. ““We won’t raise taxes tomorrow to pay for today’s problem.”
Hundreds of migrants stormed the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, and the U.S. Border Patrol’s top San Diego agent said they shoved women and children to the front of the mob to use as human shields.
“What we saw over and over yesterday was that the group – the caravan, as we call them – would push women and children to the front, and then begin, basically, rocking our agents,” Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott said in a CNN interview.
“Several agents were actually struck by rocks,” Scott said, noting that three were injured.
And President Trump’s warning that the caravan included violent criminals was proven true, too.
“You’re going to find MS-13, you’re going to find Middle Eastern, you’re going to find everything,” Trump said last week.
“U.S. Border Patrol agents have arrested a member of the infamous Salvadoran MS-13 gang who admitted to authorities that he traveled with a caravan of Central American migrants who were hoping to qualify for asylum in America,” National Review’s Mairead McArdle reports.
The member of the notoriously brutal gang, which is responsible for numerous violent murders in the U.S. over the last three decades, is 29-year-old Jose Villalobos-Jobel, a Honduran national who was arrested Saturday evening in U.S. territory east of the Calexico Port of Entry.
He admitted to agents that he’d traveled with the caravan with the intention of entering the country illegally. Villalobos-Jobel “told agents he traveled to the United States border with a large group of people from Central America intending on filing for asylum in the United States,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement about his arrest.
Related: Trump Said Migrant Caravan Includes MS-13 Gang Members; Border Patrol Just Arrested One