Some U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas have become concerned about exposure to Ebola by a migrant fleeing the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the United States.

And even more of them are worried about other illnesses frequently popping up among detainees at stations across the southern border, according to union representatives.

Border Patrol’s holding facilities in the Del Rio and El Paso sectors, or regions, in Texas are inundated with sick detainees, and the agents are becoming sick as well.

Jon Anfinsen is a National Border Patrol Council vice president and based in Del Rio, which includes Eagle Pass, where most Congolese are arriving. Anfinsen represents approximately 1,000 agents who are based out of 10 regional holding stations.

Anfinsen has been an agent 12 years and said the number of people in custody and subsequent illnesses among that population is “unprecedented.”

“Scabies, chickenpox — we had one case of the mumps here in Uvalde. I wanna say we had measles — plenty of the flu, plenty of colds, body lice, just assorted. And some of these things, they spread like wildfires when you get into a cramped holding cell. It happens,” Anfinsen said.

The continuous disease breakouts — in part caused by the overcrowded conditions in facilities and difficulty quarantining each sick person — are taking both a physical and mental toll on agents.

“It’s not so much the workload. It’s the constant illnesses. We have a lot of agents who are sick. The other day I talked to agents from four different stations. And every single one of them had a cough,” Anfinsen said.

“There was one day I spent processing and we had like 40 Guatemalans and Hondurans, and most of them had some kind of cough. And sure enough the next day, I’m sick — for a week,” he said. “It’s become the new normal, and you gotta just keep going and do your job because you can’t just not process them.”

Union officials in El Paso have urged the sector’s 2,500 agents to wear gloves and face masks whenever possible. National Border Patrol Council vice president and agent in El Paso, Wesley Farris, said the disease breakouts rarely stop.

Farris said the sector has harped on taking basic precautions to stay healthy, but said they are not enough, especially as populations from other parts of the world, including Africa arrive at the southern border at rates higher than previous years, bringing with it possibly more serious types of illnesses that are not native to the U.S.

Farris said if he had his way, he would bring in physicians from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a proactive measure. “If I was running the ship, I would make medically screening people a higher priority,” he said.

Last week, the CDC announced the activation of an emergency operations center in an effort to help with the Congo’s Ebola outbreak, the second-largest in history.

Farris said if the CDC is jumping in to help with a major outbreak overseas, the U.S. agency should “absolutely” deploy some resources to the southern border.

Farris said, “That’s my nightmare — that somebody does get sick — because I’m going to have to make the funeral arrangements. And it’s not going to be an agent, it’s going to be his 3-year-old kid at home who contracts Ebola or H1N1 because they’re little.”

The Biblical Prophecies (Matthew 24, Revelation 6) foretell that pestilence is a sign of the Last Days revealing we are nearing the end of this age and the coming of Jesus Christ.

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