What do leprosy, polio, malaria, tuberculosis, and measles all have in common? Two things: They were mostly eradicated in the United States until recently, and they have recently been reintroduced and are flaring up in various locations in the US now -- brought in (at least in part) by unscreened, unvaccinated, unidentified illegal immigrants.

Successful public health campaigns and medical advances have enabled the United States to conquer a range of disfiguring and damaging diseases. Polio, which paralyzed thousands of Americans annually, was wiped out by widespread vaccinations. In 1999 the nation’s last hospital for lepers closed its doors in Louisiana. A global campaign eradicated smallpox, while lethal tuberculosis, the “consumption” that stalked characters in decades of literature, seemed beaten by antibiotics. Measles outbreaks still occur from time to time, but they are small, local, and easily contained.

Recently, however, some of these forgotten but still formidable infectious diseases have begun to reappear in the U.S. For two years running, polio has been detected in some New York water samples, and this fall, leprosy re-emerged in Florida, where cases of malaria have also been recorded.

While leprosy can be spread by, of all things, armadillos, and malaria still lingers in swampy areas around the country, those disease reservoirs were largely under control -- until now. The sudden outbreaks of these diseases correlate very distinctly with the sudden influx of unscreened illegals across the southern border. Yes, correlation is not causation, but that doesn't mean that correlation may not indicate causation. In any case, one would think that the sudden outbreaks of these diseases would prompt some action on the part of the Biden Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the Department of Homeland Security, all of whom are responsible for various aspects of immigration and public health.

Here's the onion, and as you'd expect, the more layers you peel off, the worse it smells.

“The recent polio and leprosy cases are almost certainly imports to the U.S.,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and scientist at Stanford University, one of the most outspoken critics of official COVID-19 narratives in the last pandemic that later proved flawed.

And the Biden administration, an aggressive promoter of often mandatory vaccination last time, now is offering little public comment on the connection between disease and the porous borders with which its immigration policy has become widely identified.

That's the first layer; as you'd expect, the Biden Administration seems to have little to say about the sudden re-emergence of these diseases. That's likely because there's an obvious place to start looking for a cause of the problem, that being our wide-open running sore (in this case, literally) of a southern border. The sudden influx of unscreened and likely unvaccinated illegal immigrants arose at the same time as the sudden influx of diseases that the United States had all but eradicated!  This is liable to cost the U.S. taxpayers millions, more likely billions, over and above what unchecked, uncontrolled illegal immigration is already costing.

Here's the next layer, and yes, it smells worse; the people who are supposed to be monitoring these kinds of things are, inexplicably, unavailable for comment.

Neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the Department of Homeland Security would discuss the issue with RealClearInvestigations. Legal immigrants are required to receive vaccinations for a host of diseases, but the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged it does not have vaccination records for the millions who have entered the U.S. since the Biden administration relaxed border controls upon taking office in January 2021.

As for vaccinations, these diseases aren't another new variant of the COVID-19 virus. These are pathogens that have been known for decades, for which reliable vaccines do exist, and for which proven treatments are readily available; that's in large part how they were virtually wiped out in the United States. And the fact that the places many of these illegal immigrants are fleeing lack not only decent healthcare apparatuses but in some cases even basic sanitation--well, you would think that the Biden Administration and its agencies noted above would at least look into the possibility, instead of seemingly ignoring the problem.

In a sane world, this would be another nail in the coffin of Democrat hopes across the nation in the 2024 elections. A strong plurality, if not a majority, of the American people are already angry about this influx, and the Biden Administration seems unwilling to do anything about it.

As the last few election cycles have proved, though, we can't always rely on this being a sane world.