CDC Insiders Tried to Stop the Border Blockade, But Politics Trumped Science

Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News, Nov. 2, 2020

"By designating them public health threats who could spread the virus, the Trump administration has expelled at least 8,800 unaccompanied migrant children, some as young as 10, without a court hearing or asylum screening, circumventing safeguards Congress created to shield them from trafficking, exploitation and persecution. In all, more than 204,000 of these expulsions have been carried out across the U.S.-Mexico border since March, according to government data. ... "We were forced to do it," one former official who worked on public health told CBS News. "We exhausted all of the options. We delayed. We slow-rolled. We flat out said there's not a public health justification. We said no. And then we were told, 'Do it.' So, at the end of the day, your options are to resign in protest or sign it. And if you resign in protest, the next person is just going to do it anyways." ... According to two of the former officials, career experts at the CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine — which would have jurisdiction over border measures to contain the virus — refused to be involved in the expulsions order. Instead, these former officials said, the order was drafted by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lawyer Brian Stimson, a political appointee."

[Note: The CDC order is under litigation.]