Documents published by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on Wednesday reveal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released almost 500 illegal immigrants from China, in just its New Orleans Area of Responsibility, between November 2022 and February 2023.
The documents were published on the same day Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, filed an “emergency lawsuit” against top immigration officials in the Biden-Harris administration, seeking to prevent additional releases from Louisiana ICE facilities after the federal agency allegedly transported an illegal immigrant from China who is suffering a “rare, aggressive, and drug resistant form of tuberculosis which carries high mortality rates,” through its facilities in the state.
Skrmetti’s office released the ICE documents after it successfully won a lawsuit against the Biden-Harris administration over its plans to collude with nonprofits to relocate thousands of illegal immigrants who were held in Louisiana to Tennessee, revealing more than 7,000 were ultimately released in late 2022 and early 2023.
Among the roughly 7,700 illegal immigrants who were released during this period, ICE recorded that 491 were citizens of the People’s Republic of China.
Most of the Chinese illegal immigrants released by ICE were paroled, which an ICE web page suggests means the Biden-Harris administration released them because they were “found to have a credible fear of persecution or torture” if they were returned to China.
A smaller number were released with orders of supervision, which immigration attorneys explain requires the noncitizen to provide the government with information about their location. Others were issued orders of recognizance, which allows ICE to release illegal immigrants without assigning them an immigration status or concluding their immigration case.
In her lawsuit, Murrill revealed ICE transported the illegal immigrant infected with tuberculosis to facilities “throughout Louisiana,” which allowed “more than 200 detainees and untold numbers of non-detainees” to come into contact, potentially exposing them to the drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis.
The Louisiana Attorney General also said ICE has plans to release more detainees, regardless of whether they came into contact with someone suffering from a communicable, life-threatening disease.
“The reason for this emergency lawsuit is narrow but critical: ICE has announced its intent to release potentially infected detainees from its two contract facilities – without being cleared by the Louisiana Department of Health – if an order requires release,” the Louisiana Attorney General wrote. “This is utterly wrong.”
While the Chinese national infected with tuberculosis was transported to facilities throughout Louisiana, the lawsuit reveals the detainee entered the country in July 2024, when the illegal immigrant was flown “on a plane with over 100 detainees” from California to Louisiana.
Murrill named Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other Biden-Harris administration officials as defendants in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit additionally claimed some of the illegal immigrants who deplaned in Louisiana alongside the Chinese national who is suffering from tuberculosis have since been released into the country by the Biden-Harris administration.
Illegal immigration and refugee resettlement have been repeatedly tied to concerns over infectious disease outbreaks during the Biden-Harris administration, including in April, when tuberculosis and measles outbreaks were reported at Chicago migrant shelters.
Additionally, in September of last year, three cases of tuberculosis were confirmed among illegal immigrants who crossed over the southern border into Texas, and in 2021, it was reported that 600 Afghan citizens were quarantined at a military base in Wisconsin over concerns of measles, chicken pox, and tuberculosis.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Group of Chinese People” by Виктор Пинчук. CC BY-SA 4.0.
