2014.ISDS.Abstracts.Final.pdf


ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2014. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
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ISDS 2014 Conference Abstracts

An Analysis of the Health Hazards Posed by a Surge of 
Unaccompanied Alien Children to the Lower Rio Grande 
Valley Border

Tyann Blessington*, Andrew Hickey, Diana Y. Wong, Mark Freese and Teresa Quitugua

National Biosurveillance Integration Center, District of Columbia, DC, USA

Objective
To categorize and assess the health impacts of the 2014 surge 

of unaccompanied alien children to the Lower Rio Grande Valley 
Border.

Introduction
Unaccompanied alien children (UAC) are undocumented migrant 

children who come to the United States unaccompanied by a parent 
or guardian. The number apprehended UACs originating from the 
Central America counties of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras 
have increased since FY 2012. Since the beginning of fiscal year 2014, 
more than 57,000 UACs have been apprehended; double the number 
that was apprehended in FY 2013. The majority of UACs were 
apprehended and processed in the Customs and Border Protection’s 
(CBP) Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector of South Texas. The CBP 
facilities were not designed to house or care for children for extended 
periods. Resources and personnel were significantly strained in the 
management and care of UACs.

Methods
In collaboration with multiple partners, the National Biosurveillance 

Integration Center (NBIC) provided an integrated analysis of the 
health issues that UACs experienced before leaving their home 
country, while in transit to the U.S., and while being housed in 
U.S. custody. Analytical reports on the health security of Mexican 
and Central American nations were shared with federal partners. 
CBP Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison (OIIL), Office 
of Health Affairs (OHA) Workforce Health, and NBIC analysts 
evaluated apprehension rates, migration patterns, and potential health 
hazards related to immigration to our southwest border. NBIC began 
reporting on border health issues at the beginning of FY 2014, through 
briefs to DHS components and OHA leadership and through timely 
situational reports to federal, state, and local partners. The NBIC 
assisted federal preparedness by reporting the occurrence of infectious 
disease, the major infectious and non-infectious diseases, recent 
notable epidemics, and other major health issues affecting Mexican 
and Central American nations. The NBIC assisted in the healthcare 
response by evaluating health data of apprehended UACs, evaluating 
current practices through OHA and NBIC personnel deployments, and 
by providing situational and epidemiological awareness of the most 
probable infectious agents afflicting UACs in CBP custody facilities.

Results
Many impoverished Central Americans lack the ability to receive 

adequate healthcare and organized criminal elements have hindered 
access to available resources. Even though the health security of these 
nations have been strained, the infectious diseases afflicting Central 
American children largely mirror those are reported in the U.S. The 
majority of illnesses afflicting UACs are relatively minor and do 
not pose a risk to the local populations. Common health ailments, 
including lice, scabies, influenza, and chicken pox are treatable and 
are acute infections of limited duration.

Conclusions
Timely identification and early awareness of health hazards is 

essential for protecting personnel, ensuring appropriate resource 
allocation, and supporting public health intervention strategies. For 
many UACs, the travel from their home country to the U.S. border 
was physically demanding and required optimum health. The health 
impacts of UACs to local U.S. populations were minimal.

Keywords
Unaccompanied Alien Children; Border; DHS; Health; Risk 
Assessment

*Tyann Blessington

E-mail: tyann.blessington@hq.dhs.gov    

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 7(1):e66, 2015