A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the agency has offered local communities funding for testing, but it needs the state to sign off first: “We hope that Governor Abbott will reconsider his decision to reject DHS’s agreement with the Texan local authorities that would enable the very testing of migrant families that Governor Abbott says he wants.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewals...h=482d38c37ae7
"We hope that Governor Abbott will reconsider his decision to reject DHS's agreement with the Texan local authorities that would enable the very testing of migrant families that Governor Abbott says he wants," the spokesperson said.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/04/polit...ing/index.html
Gov. Greg Abbott appeared this week to rebuff help from the federal government to give coronavirus testing to migrants before they are released from federal custody, saying it's a federal responsibility to screen immigrants coming into Texas.
The announcement came after Abbott, a Republican, repeatedly accused the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden of “releasing immigrants in South Texas that have been exposing Texans to COVID.” The Biden administration denied that Thursday, and CNN reported that Abbott was “stalling” on a federal offer to pitch in on testing migrants.
Asked for evidence of that claim, Abbott's office pointed to news reports from NBC News, Fox News and the New York Post earlier this week that 108 migrants had tested positive since Jan. 25 in Brownsville after being released by federal authorities.
The testing in Brownsville was reportedly administered by the city. NBC reported that 6.3% of the migrants tested were confirmed to have the coronavirus. That rate is smaller than the positivity rate statewide, in which an average of 8.3% of tests came back positive over the past seven days. The 108 tests over the past five weeks is a small share of the more than 3,800 confirmed cases in Cameron County reported by the state since Jan. 25.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03...rants-testing/