(The Center Square) – Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its plans to release a tuberculosis-positive Chinese migrant into the U.S. without clearance from the state Health Department.
Murrill filed the emergency lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on Oct. 16 and it was unsealed on Tuesday at Murrill’s request once personal details were redacted.
The Republican attorney general is seeking both a temporary restraining order along with preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent any detainee from being released by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the private Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, and the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile without medical clearance from the Louisiana Department of Health.
According to a timeline provided by the attorney general’s office, state officials were informed that an unnamed Chinese migrant, who entered the U.S. illegally in April, tested positive for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis with a high rate of mortality on Oct. 9.
The detainee had been flown from California to Alexandria and then sent to Richwood in July. The lawsuit says the detainee was not placed in isolation despite a positive TB test on July 23 and moved to the Basile facility and kept in the general population.
The lawsuit also says 174 migrants were at the Basile facility that could have been potentially exposed, with 60 having been deported, relocated or released.
State officials say the detainee came in contact with hundreds of other detainees and staff.
When Murrill and other state officials called ICE to demand it not release any detainees without medical clearance from the state Health Department, the agency refused.
Murrill and her staff then filed the complaint in U.S. District Court on Oct. 16. The next day, the court issued a temporary restraining order that prevented ICE from releasing potentially infected detainees without state approval.
A preliminary injunction hearing will be held on Oct. 31.
“The protection of our southern border is paramount to the security of the United States,” Murrill said in a release. “It is neither political nor unreasonable that Louisiana has time and time again demanded that the Biden-Harris administration defend this nation. Those not legally present should not be in the country – period. Millions of undocumented illegal aliens continue to pour across the southern border – unidentified, untracked, and untested for diseases that can threaten the lives of American citizens.
“The federal government has put the health and safety of Louisiana and American people at risk. Despite this dereliction of duty by President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Secretary Mayorkas, Louisiana officials acted immediately to protect our people.”
