Border wall workers in New Mexico spark coronavirus anxiety

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Some residents of a southern New Mexico village, immigrant advocates and others are raising concerns about an influx of workers in the community as part of the effort to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall during the coronavirus outbreak.

They've asked the state’s top elected officials to step in after the federal contractor working on the project began erecting portable housing.

The request reflects growing worries on both the northern and southern U.S. borders over construction workers bringing the virus to areas with sparse health care services.

Opponents of the work effort argued in a letter that public health orders issued by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham are aimed at limiting groups of people and contact to keep the coronavirus pandemic from worsening.

“We respectfully ask that you do everything within your power to halt the influx of out-state-workers into our border communities to protect the safety and health of rural New Mexicans and border communities,” their letter reads. “The lives of New Mexicans are depending on it."

In remote northern Montana, work began over the weekend on the Keystone XL pipeline. Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock says concerns about planned worker camps that could house as many as 1,000 people each need to be resolved before sponsor TC Energy finalizes its construction plans.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

Despite a clampdown on people’s movements across much of the U.S., the border wall and pipeline work are exempt from stay-at-home restrictions. Even in New Mexico, the public health orders carve out exemptions for...