BATON ROUGE — Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and several agency leaders, including Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, after a woman from China, who entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico, was reportedly transported to holding centers across the state despite testing positive for tuberculosis.
The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Louisiana, seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent ICE from releasing any detainees until they have been cleared by the Louisiana Department of Health.
According to the lawsuit, ICE moved the detainee through several facilities in Louisiana, potentially exposing over 200 detainees and an unknown number of staff and visitors to the disease.
“What we’re dealing with is a form of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Again at this time, we have no indication that the public is in any danger,” Landry said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference.
The patient underwent various tests and was diagnosed with TB after being transported to the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe in July, the lawsuit states. The patient was also “suspicious for active TB” after receiving a chest X-ray on July 23, before she was released into the general population at the Basile Facility, the lawsuit said.
Following further testing in September, Landry says the patient was hospitalized, and on Oct. 9, the Louisiana Department of Health confirmed that the patient tested positive for a non-drug-resistant form of TB.
“Since the time that the TB team has been investigating this, we have been actively working to ensure that the proper healthcare protocols were in place to protect the public,” Landry said.
A health official stated that treatment could take up to six months for full recovery.
“As of today, Patient 0 is pretty much asymptomatic but still receiving medication,” Dr. Ralph Abrams, Louisiana Surgeon General, said, noting that Patient 0 may need to be quarantined for several weeks.
The lawsuit alleges that Patient 0 entered the U.S. through Mexico and was apprehended in California in July. She was then transported by ICE on a plane with over 100 detainees to Alexandria, where she boarded a bus with approximately 40 other detainees and was taken to Richwood. Some of the 40 detainees who arrived with Patient 0 have since been deported, transferred, relocated, or released, the suit alleges.
The suit also alleges that on Oct. 15, ICE stated it would give a “few hours’ notice” before any inmate’s release but would not comply with an order requiring medical clearance from the Louisiana Department of Health for detainees being released from facilities where they had been exposed to TB.
“ICE has announced its intent to release potentially infected detainees from its two contract facilities—without being medically cleared by the Louisiana Department of Health—if an order requires release. ICE’s stated intent is to release that detainee onto Louisiana streets, its bus stations, and its airports,” the lawsuit claims.
It remains unclear whether Patient 0 had TB when she entered the United States or contracted it while in detention. The CDC says that drug-resistant TB is caused by TB bacteria that are resistant to at least one of the most effective TB medicines. The diesease is transmitted in the same way as other forms of TB.
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