A crisis is escalating on America’s southern border. Illegal immigrants, many of them unaccompanied children, are streaming into the country and being channeled to detention facilities where border patrol agents are forced into the role of nanny and foster parent while their primary function — guarding the border — is neglected.

An estimated 52,000 unaccompanied minors have been apprehended since October; there’s no telling how many entered the country undetected or died while attempting the hazardous trek across the Mexican desert.

Border agents are processing, transporting, feeding and housing the immigrant surge, constantly aware of the threat of dangerous gang members.

But there’s an even more dangerous threat. Agents are putting their lives on the line, screening, isolating and treating sick detainees with potentially deadly illnesses.

Contagious disease outbreaks have been reported in the detention centers. Incidents include scabies, chicken pox, tuberculosis and swine flu.

A week ago, two cases of swine flu were confirmed, prompting border agents to isolate the two ill children. In addition, children who had been in contact with the two had to be quarantined as well. So were border patrol agents, social workers and health care providers. In all, about 120 people were isolated and out of commission because of two afflicted children.

Other diseases are likely to occur in the cramped facilities full of refugee children, most lacking the rudimentary of immunizations. Reported sexual assaults along the way will likely lead to cases of HIV infection and venereal disease, among other things.

In spite of numerous warnings of an impending health crisis, federal officials are continuing with a plan to relocate some of the immigrants to other parts of the country, including at least one city in Pennsylvania. Government agencies have done little to acknowledge the threat posed to public health.

For any terrorist opposed to the United States, the crisis raises a huge rhetorical question: Why bother with bombs when a virus can accomplish the same result?

The crisis coincides with an unprecedented outbreak of deadly Ebola infections across West Africa. It would not be extremely difficult for a motivated terrorist to recruit a volunteer to contract Ebola, fly to Mexico and expose a number of undocumented aliens as they are about to cross the border into Texas, New Mexico or Arizona.

This exact scenario plays out in “Executive Orders,” a novel by Tom Clancy, author of the popular Jack Ryan series. The book was published in 1996, which means Clancy suggested the possibility of a biological terror attack against the United States nearly 20 years ago.

We should all be alarmed that the distribution of refugee children to population centers around the country presents an easy vehicle for the spread of deadly contagions.

The plan to relocate any of these juvenile refugees should be halted immediately.