Lindsey Graham Invites Fauci to Visit 'Biggest Super Spreader Event' at US Southern Border

A number of Republicans have recently visited the border detention facility in Donna, Texas, which is currently overcrowded at about 1700% capacity, according to media reports. Photos showed migrants crammed in tiny "pods," causing increased criticism of the administration's treatment of child migrants in recent days.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Caorlina slammed Dr. Anthony Fauci in a series of tweets, implying that the top infectious disease doctor is ignoring the possibility of coronavirus spreading among illegal migrants at US border facilities.

​Thousands of Central American migrants with a "10 percent COVID-positive rate" are spreading the virus at overcrowded border facilities, according to Graham's multi-tweet thread. Graham said that the migrants are living "on top of each other" before being "dumped off in Texas" and other areas of the country to spread the novel coronavirus.

"Paging Dr. Fauci: You need to go to the southern border and witness in person the biggest super spreader event in the nation – President [Biden's] immigration policies," Graham tweeted on Friday.

Paging Dr. Fauci:

You need to go to the southern border and witness in person the biggest super spreader event in the nation – President @JoeBiden's immigration policies.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 2, 2021

"Dr. Fauci, does COVID-science justify President Biden’s handling of migrants from Central America?" Graham said in a concluding post. "If you are worried about the spread of COVID, you should be gravely concerned about what is happening at our southern border. There is no end in sight on this super-spreader event until these policies are changed."

Graham's remarks represent Republican dissatisfaction with the Biden administration and the president's chief medical officer, who continue to preach masking, small meetings, and social distancing for Americans at a time when border facilities are overcrowded due to a migrant influx.

Last week, Senator Ted Cruz released a video of a staffer attempting to stop him from filming inside a crowded migrant detention center where children were sleeping on the ground during a Republican senators trip to Texas, calling the crisis at the border a "manmade humanitarian disaster."

Asylum-seeking migrants' families queue to board a bus as they wait to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrols after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico in Penitas, Texas, U.S., March 26, 2021.

© REUTERS / GO NAKAMURA

Graham said at the time that that the Biden administration was staging "a huge cover-up" to mask "massive system failure" in terms of its handling of the border crisis.

President Biden has also resisted calls to go to the border personally, telling reporters that he will do so "at some point."

Officials with the Border Patrol estimate they are now dealing with a surge of 5,000 daily encounters with migrants. More than 100,000 apprehensions were registered on the southern border by US authorities in February 2021, with data for March expected to show a 50% rise over February, according to US media.