Rising Measles Cases Driven by Falling Vaccination, Not Illegal Immigration

Filed 1h ago · Via FactCheck.org · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Myotus · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Rep. Byron Donalds told CBS's Face the Nation that measles outbreaks trace to “rampant illegal immigration” under the Biden administration, offering El Paso and Southwest Florida as evidence when pressed. FactCheck.org found no such link in either location, and infectious disease experts instead point to falling U.S. childhood vaccination rates as the driver behind 2,903 confirmed 2026 cases, already topping last year's 2,289 — the highest since 1991.

CDC does not track immigration status of measles patients, and even the one documented outbreak in a detention facility would account for under 6% of this year's cases. Meanwhile the U.S., measles-free since 2000, is now facing possible loss of that elimination status when the Pan American Health Organization reviews the data in November.

Experts note the pattern is an old one: blaming immigrants for disease spread while the actual data point toward domestic unvaccinated communities and outbreaks like the 762-case cluster that began in West Texas in early 2025.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A sitting congressman running for governor found it easier to gesture at immigrants than to answer a direct question about vaccinating children — and when reporters checked, the geography didn't even match his own examples. This is not a gap in messaging; it's a refusal to say the plain, boring, well-documented thing on television.

Source: Read the original at FactCheck.org → Scored: Fig Leaf Rag · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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