Fox News' Laura Ingraham Baselessly Blames Migrants for Florida Measles Outbreak

Measles is back and spreading among Florida kids.

But while experts would tell you that low vaccination rates are responsible, Fox News has placed the blame on migrants.

Following reports of a South Florida elementary school struggling to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious disease, which was once nearly eradicated in the U.S., Fox News host Laura Ingraham baselessly claimed on her TV show that the new infections cropping up are the result of migrants making their way into the country.

"Florida has seen the latest outbreak, with nine cases so far. So, it's not just the spread of violent crime across the country caused by the open border, it’s the potential spread of contagious diseases," the conservative TV host said during the February 26 segment on The Ingraham Angle.

Despite research to the contrary, some right-wing pundits and politicians have long framed immigrants as a primary source of disease outbreaks over the past decade.

Back in 2014, Fox News baselessly argued that migrant children were bringing tuberculosis to the U.S., with Ingraham saying, "The government spreads the illegal immigrants across the country, and the disease is spread across the country." In 2015, a month after kicking off his presidential candidacy by labeling undocumented people "rapists" who bring drugs and crime into the country, Donald Trump said people from Mexico were responsible for "tremendous infectious disease...pouring across the border."

"Suggesting migrants are culpable for disease outbreaks is a racist dog whistle," writes Alicia Sadowski of media watchdog group Media Matters, "but it’s unsurprising for a network intent on demonizing immigration as a political cudgel against the Biden administration."

There have been nine confirmed cases of measles in Broward County, where six cases were initially confirmed at the Manatee Bay Elementary School in the affluent suburb of Weston.

Health officials, who warn the highly infectious virus will only spread further, have attributed the outbreak to parents simply failing to vaccinate their children in the Sunshine State.

"They're not protected," Nicole Iovine, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Florida, told New Times last week. "This is what happens when people aren't vaccinated against a highly infectious disease."

Nonetheless, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic, has given parents the green light to send their unvaccinated children to school in defiance of guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, [the state health department] is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance," Ladapo wrote in a letter sent to Manatee Bay Elementary School parents. 

Measles, which spreads via saliva and respiratory droplets, can cause serious medical complications such as pneumonia but is completely preventable with a readily available vaccine.

Declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, the disease has seen a comeback in recent years everywhere from New York to California primarily owing to vaccine skepticism, according to the CDC.

In Broward County, the last reported case was in 2019, the year of the country's worst measles outbreak since 1992. The CDC recorded more than 1,200 cases of measles that year, and a study of children infected in New York City showed that nearly 90 percent were unvaccinated.

Although two doses of the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine are required to attend Florida's public schools, parents can seek exemptions for religious and medical reasons.