White House eyes travel from Mexico as source of COVID-19

  White House is exploring possibility that travel from Mexico may be contributing to a new wave of coronavirus infections, rar than states’ moves toward reopening ir ecomies. tion was discussed at some length Thursday during a meeting of ministration’s coronavirus task force in White House Situation Room that focused on identifying commonalities between new outbreaks. Officials also considered how to surge response capabilities.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was deploying teams to Arizona and or hotspots to try to trace outbreaks and contain m.

In dition to Arizona, or states experiencing recent spikes of infections include California, Texas and rth Carolina — particularly within Hispanic community. As a result, task force is looking at wher those spikes may be tied to legal travel between U.S. and Mexico, which is experiencing an ongoing severe coronavirus outbreak.

Two officials familiar with discussions described m to Associated Press, speaking on condition of anymity because y were t authorized to publicly describe internal conversations.

While President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to seal U.S. borders to both legal and illegal immigrants during outbreak, American citizens and permanent residents are still allowed entry to U.S., as are agricultural workers.

White House task force was also looking at or causes for a recent uptick in numbers, ting that issues likely differ by location. Delays in test reporting and fact that some infected people take multiple tests in order to get an all-clear to return to work are among or ories that are being explored.

Trump has long pointed to Mexico as a source of crime and disease in U.S., and has used crisis to push forward some of his most hard-line immigration proposals, including blocking asylum at border and limiting issuance of green cards to those living outside country.