VP Pence ordered borders closed after CDC experts refused

 Vice President Mike Pence in March directed nation’s top disease control ncy to use its emergency powers to effectively seal U.S. borders, overruling ncy’s scientists who said re was evidence action would slow coronavirus, according to two former health officials. action has so far caused nearly 150,000 children and ults to be expelled from country.

top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctor who oversees se s of orders h refused to comply with a Trump ministration directive saying re was valid public health reason to issue it, according to three people with direct kwledge of doctor’s refusal.

So Pence intervened in early March. vice president, who h taken over Trump ministration’s response to growing pandemic, called Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC’s director, and told him to use ncy’s special legal authority in a pandemic anyway.

Also on phone call were Pence’s chief of staff, Mark Short, and Homeland Security Secretary Ch Wolf. Redfield immediately ordered his senior staff to get it done, according to a former CDC official who was t authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anymity.

CDC's order covered U.S. and Cana borders, but has mostly affected thousands of asylum seekers and immigrants arriving at U.S.-Mexico border. Public health experts h urged ministration to focus on a national mask mandate, enforce social distancing and increase number of contact tracers to track down people exposed to virus.

But Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Donald Trump who has been a vocal opponent of immigration, pushed for expulsion order.

“That was a Stephen Miller special. He was all over that,” said Olivia Troye, a former top aide to Pence, who coordinated White House coronavirus task force. She recently resigned in protest, saying ministration h placed politics above public health. “re was a lot of pressure on DHS and CDC to push this forward.”

Title 42 of Public Health Service Act gives federal health officials unique powers during a pandemic to take extraordinary measures to limit transmission of an infectious disease. One of those is ability to stop flow of immigration from countries with high numbers of confirmed cases, a legal authority CDC does t rmally have.

Public health experts say ministration’s pattern of dismissing science-based decision making in favor of political goals has endangered many, including President Donald Trump himself, who on Friday confirmed he and first ly h tested positive for coronavirus.

“ decision to halt asylum processes ‘to protect public health’ is t based on evidence or science,” wrote Dr. Anthony So, an international public health expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a letter to Redfield in April. “This order directly endangers tens of thousands of lives and threatens to amplify dangerous anti-immigrant sentiment and xephobia.”

Since order went into effect on March 20, nearly 150,000 people — including at least 8,800 unaccompanied children who are rmally afforded special legal protections under federal law — have been sent back to ir countries of origin without rmal due process. Many have been returned to dangerous and violent conditions in El Salvor, Honduras and Guatemala.

Pence's spokeswoman Katie Miller called story of phone call “false.”

“Vice President Pence never directed CDC on this issue,” she said in an email.

Lee Gelernt, deputy director of American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project described order as “a complete bypass of entire asylum system and () system protecting unaccompanied children."

“That is what Trump ministration has been trying to do for four years and y finally saw a window,” he ded.

Miller started his campaign for order by button-holing coronavirus task force staff to try to get issue on its nda, according to Troye. task force did t take issue up immediately, said Troye. ministration h alrey passed a nessential travel ban, which public health experts h largely supported. CDC spurned Miller’s idea, too. In early March ncy’s Division of Migration and Quarantine, led by Dr. Martin Cetron, refused to support order because re was t a strong public health basis for such a drastic move, according to three people with kwledge of his decision.

White House officials were undeterred. y turned to lawyers at CDC’s parent ncy, Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a call with CDC’s senior leership, attorneys for both ncies urged CDC to use its public health authority to turn people back at borders. Border officials said y wanted to protect ir nts, and American lives.

By mid-March, CDC’s scientists still refused to comply. That’s when Pence and Wolf called with mess to get it done and quickly.

An HHS lawyer n wrote order and submitted it to Redfield, who reviewed it and signed it. Redfield declined to comment through a CDC spokesperson, because order is currently in litigation.

“y forced us," said a former health official involved in process. "It is eir do it or get fired,”

Trump described order as originating at CDC, when it h t. “ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has decided to exercise its authority ... to give Customs and Border Protection tools it needs to prevent transmission of virus coming through both rrn and sourn border," Trump told a March 20 at coronavirus task force press briefing.

“So we’re treating borders equally — rrn border and sourn border," he said. "A lot of people say that y’re t treated equally. Well, y are.”

In recent months, Trump has highlighted decision to shut down border as an argument for his reelection in vember.

And Title 42 order has been renewed multiple times since it first passed as a month-long temporary measure. Mark Morgan, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner, has said that expulsions were necessary to protect his nts, and that 10 CBP employees have died after contracting COVID-19.

“It’s a great — it’s a great feeling to have closed up border," Trump said in August after being updated on border wall construction in Yuma, Arizona. “w people come in, if y come in, through merit, if y come in legally. But y don’t come in like y used to,.”

Before March, Central American children who crossed into U.S. alone were generally sent to facilities overseen by Department of Health and Human Services. HHS shelters are required to be state licensed, have beds and provide schooling. Most children are eventually placed with family or friends who serve as sponsors while y await ir day in court.

Under Title 42 order this year, ministration inste detained some migrant children in hotels, sometimes for weeks, before expelling m to ir home countries. That practice, and government’s failure to give migrant children ir rmal due process, are currently being challenged in court.

After witnessing a gang member murder a young man and being threatened, one 16-year-old decided to leave Honduras over summer and arrived at border near El Paso on July 4, where he was taken into government custody, detained in a hotel and told he would be deported, his far said. He was allowed to stay after ACLU filed a suit challenging Title 42 expulsions and in August was reunited with his far in Texas, where he is w attending school online.

“He was really worried y wouldn’t let him reunite with me, and y didn’t let him see anyone, so he was just waiting for m to send him back to Honduras,” his far, Carlos Emilio Barrera, told AP. “He’s doing better w because he’s taking classes in school and he’s hoping he will have opportunity to one day get asylum, but he still sometimes has dreams that he’s back inside locked up.”

ministration’s move t to grant migrant children ir rmal due process is currently being challenged in court.

“I don’t kw how you could look ar CDC scientist in eye after doing this," Dr. Josh Sharfstein, a former FDA deputy commissioner and a Johns Hopkins professor, said of Redfield. “It’s undermining purpose of having an ncy that uses evidence to protect public health.

“It’s a profound dereliction of duty for a CDC director.”

This story has t been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.