Fox Contributor: Undocumented Immigrants Spread Infectious Diseases In Cities

Marc Siegel: “When You Let Illegal Immigrants Into A Sanctuary City ... It Increases The Rate Of Disease”

From the November 4 edition of Fox News' Outnumbered:

Video file

MARC SIEGEL: I completely agree with re-looking at [sanctuary cities]. And one thing that hasn't come up at all, Harris, and I've actually looked into this, is it's not just crime that occurs, and then they don't deport the criminal. It's also disease. When you let illegal immigrants into a sanctuary city, they don't come in with a card that says I don't have tuberculosis or I don't have the flu or I don't have this disease. And these things spread around big cities like San Francisco. It increases the rate of disease, and it increases the pressure on the healthcare system. 

HARRIS FAULKNER (HOST): Alright, two things. I was reading just this week that tuberculosis is now leading most of the other diseases around the world in killing people. And it's not treatment. And we have Doctors Without Borders and others trying to go help out in that sense. But the other things is, gosh, you say those words and you know the reaction that people have to that. Politically, can you say that? Is there enough correctness in that? As a doctor, speak to the issue of what you just said? 

SIEGEL: What you said is really important, which is they get partly treated or they get treated late, so then they get a resistant kind of tuberculosis that's even more deadly. And that's true with every disease. And I can talk about that with a great deal of certainty because I've studied it. The other issue is mental health issues. I mean people who commit crimes tend to be a little more -- not always -- but they may be a little but more mentally unstable. One thing's for sure, they are not getting mental health care. If -- we are not even keeping track of them. They're not rushing to get health care, and again there too, they're putting a burden on the health care system. 

FAULKNER: Yeah but I tell you Andrea, you say that in some corners and people want to fight you, if you say --

MEGHAN MCCAIN: It's true, I can already hear the tweets.

ANDREA TANTAROS (HOST): Fearmonging, Republicans are xenophobes, they hate foreigners. I am a first-generation American, my father was an immigrant. I get it. I actually speak fluent Spanish.  I have the most sympathy in the world. I grew up in a kitchen, a restaurant kitchen in my family's businesses, with immigrants. So I get it. But the doc brings up a really good point. Besides the economic strain -- Sandra, you know this better than anyone -- that it puts on hospitals and the medical system of immigrants, we're having trouble paying for American citizens, let alone ones who aren't. 

Previously:

Conservatives Falsely Blame Undocumented Children For Deadly Enterovirus

The Most Absurd Anti-Immigrant Myths Of 2014

Conservative Media Stoke Fears About Humanitarian Crisis Causing Children To Enter U.S.