quarantines

The government has been making plans to deal with the potential outbreak of bird flu if (or when) it mutates to become easily contagious to and between humans, or other killer flus. On of the strategies for dealing with it is quarantines of areas with outbreaks of it. However, they say they can't keep illegal immigrants out of the country. If we are not capable of preventing illegal immigration, how can we expect to enforce a quarantine? And of course, the illegal immigrants may bring in the flu, esp. because much of the immigration is from areas where many people keep chickens in their back yards.

Also, the CDC is making plans to quarantine sick airplane and ship passengers, for both interstate and international travel. There might be some merit in this as far as preventing the spread of diseases such as ebola from outside the Americas. But of course, it doesn't prevent illegal immigrants from bringing in diseases the Americas. Also, the proposals for tracking disease for interstate travelers seem rather pointless and uselessly expensive, as most people travel by car, so most sick people in interstate travel would not be detected anyway.