If Joe Biden is serious about COVID, why is he not testing at America’s southern border? The government, reports Jason Riley in the WSJ, is releasing migrants, untested, to live in tight quarters alongside scores of strangers.

In late April the New York Times reported:

(The government) “has insufficient time and space to test migrants,” and therefore “testing is being postponed until their release to local community groups, cities and counties, usually after the new arrivals have spent days confined in tight spaces with scores of strangers, often sleeping shoulder to shoulder on mats on the floor.” 

“As the United States vaccinates larger numbers of people and several states begin to reopen after seeing lower infection rates, the failure of U.S. authorities to test adult migrants for the coronavirus in jam-packed border processing centers is creating a potential for new transmissions, public health officials and shelter operators warn.”

How big a role high numbers of illegal immigration have played in the spread of COVID is hard to pinpoint. But the Biden administration cannot have it both ways, continues Mr. Riley.

If the president wants the public to defer to public-health officials when it comes to masking and social distancing, he can’t expect people to ignore these same officials when they tell us that large numbers of recent migrants may be contributing to the crisis.