GOP Rep.: ‘Illegal Aliens’ May Have Started Measles Outbreak In U.S.

Alabama Fifth Congressional District U.S. Representative Mo Brooks speaks at the Washington Update Luncheon Thursday April 5, 2012 at the VBC South Hall in Huntsville, Al.. (AP Photo/The Huntsville Times, Robin Conn)
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Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) on Tuesday said that the outbreak of measles in the Western U.S. may have been started by “illegal aliens.”

The recent measles outbreak has caused some politicians to take a stance on whether vaccines for children should be mandatory in the U.S. Numerous conservative lawmakers have argued that parents should not be forced to vaccinate their kids, while some Republicans have argued that vaccinations are safe and necessary.

But during a Tuesday morning interview with the Matt Murphy radio show, Brooks was asked if there is a correlation between undocumented children entering the U.S. and the measles outbreak.

“I don’t think there is any healthcare professional who has examined the fact, who could honestly say that Americans have not died because the diseases brought into America by illegal aliens who are not properly health care screened, as lawful immigrants are,” Brooks responded, according to audio published by ThinkProgress.

The congressman mentioned enterovirus, the spread of which conservatives blamed on undocumented immigrants. The Centers for Disease Control said there was no evidence linking immigrant children to the virus.

“It might be the enterovirus that has a heavy presence in Central and South America that has caused deaths of American children over the past 6 to 9 months. It might be this measles outbreak. There are any number of things,” Brooks said.

He did express some sympathy toward undocumented immigrants.

“You have to have sympathy for the plight of the illegal aliens,” he said. “They have not been blessed, in their home countries, with the kind of health care, the kind of immunizations that we demand of our children in the United States.”

He added that the requirement that kids are vaccinated before going to school “to some degree is suspended for illegal alien children.”

According to the World Health Organization, immunization for measles in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, where a majority of undocumented children have recently emigrated from, is about 93 percent. Children are also vaccinated at processing facilities just across the border.

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Notable Replies

  1. According to the World Health Organization, immunization for measles in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, where a majority of undocumented children have recently emigrated from, is about 93 percent. Children are also vaccinated at processing facilities just across the border.

    So in other words, those countries have the same if not better rates of vaccination rates than the US. Way to go Rep. Mel Brooks…You sir, are a fucking ignoramus.

  2. It is the fault of the brown horde… ergo Obama is brown therefore he is the spread of the diseases killing the children. Full on Right-wing Nut Job.

    Is there any way to deport the assholes that start these hate filled rants?

  3. Texas should have been a Blue state. Florida should have been a Blue state ALL THE TIME (and not just the last couple of Presidential cycles).

    If Latinos manage to stay asleep at the ballot box, all the “novelas” that send them to the land of make-believe (with their blond TV characters actually speaking Spanish) will not prevent them from, upon shutting the TV off, returning to an America run by a Congress full of “sin verguenzas” like this one.

  4. Avatar for tamdai tamdai says:

    “It might be the enterovirus that has a heavy presence in Central and South America that has caused deaths of American children over the past 6 to 9 months. It might be this measles outbreak.”

    Or, it might not be, dumbass.

  5. So…even if he were correct, the virus doesn’t spread without anti-vaccination idiots in the US. smh

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