Border Patrol on alert after 71 people from hard-hit Ebola countries illegally enter U.S. this year

With a number of prominent conservative politicians raising fears that the Ebola outbreak could spread to the U.S. via the country’s porous borders with Mexico and Canada, Customs and Border Protection and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sought to reassure a worried public that they are doing everything they can to monitor people entering the U.S. – whether legally or illegally – for the virus.

“CBP and the CDC have closely coordinated to develop policies, procedures, and protocols to identify travelers that are known by U.S. public health officials to have a communicable disease and to handle in a manner that minimizes risk to the public,” Jennifer Evanitsky, a spokeswoman for the CBP told Fox News Latino in an emailed statement.

The CBP’s statement comes after Republican senator and prospective GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul raised fears that infected individuals could enter the country through the U.S.-Mexico border, stoking more concern in states like Texas where Thomas Eric Duncan became the first American to bring the virus to the country. More