MCALLEN Texas — The detention of an illegal alien from the East African country of Eritrea caused concern Wednesday night at the U.S. Border Patrol Station because the agents did not have the training to determine if the man posed a health risk amid the recent concerns for Ebola.
The arrest took place Wednesday night when agents arrested the man and took him to the McAllen Border Patrol Station which is where agents became concerned about how to deal with the possibility of a communicable disease, sources close to the case told Breitbart Texas.
The man didn’t exhibit any symptoms however the concerns come after Thomas Eric Duncan died from Ebola he contracted in Liberia before traveling to Dallas.
In the case of the Eritrean man, questions remain about what route he took to get to the U.S. which in a worst case scenario that he had in fact been infected could have led to contaminating other aliens along the way, said Albert Spratte a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council 3307.
“The concern is real, they don’t give us any training in how to deal with communicable diseases,” Spratte said. “What happens if you have another person coming from an African nation who is infected by a dangerous disease, who did they infect at the stash houses or other people they came in contact with along the way?”
Currently, any medical issues or questions are brought up at the processing station which is already too late since any sick person could have been in contact with other aliens or agents, the union spokesman said.
“CBP and DHS have not provided the agents on the ground any training about how to deal with this,” Spratte said. “This is not something that they can teach with a PowerPoint presentation. The fact that an arrest caused a scare at the station should say something.”
Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter @ildefonsoortiz
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