Posted on 10/17/2014 2:22:44 PM PDT by Kaslin
Senators on both sides of the political aisle are calling for travel restrictions on West African countries as government officials in the U.S. fail to quell concerns about the threat free travel poses to the health and safety of Americans.
Democrat Senators Kay Hagan and Bill Nelson have called for temporary travel restrictions and today, Republican Senators Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn sent a letter directly to President Obama demanding the administration stop issuing visas to people currently living in Ebola stricken countries.
Here is the text of the letter in it's entirety:
Dear President Obama:
As members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over immigration and visa policies, we write to express our grave concerns about the seemingly inflexible position you have taken in issuing a travel ban or heightened entry requirements on individuals who may been infected with the Ebola virus.
On September 16 of this year, you spoke at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, saying,
“Now, here's the hard truth: In West Africa, Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before. It's spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially. Today, thousands of people in West Africa are infected. That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands. And if the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected, with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us. So this is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security -- it's a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic. That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease.”
We couldn’t agree more that an Ebola epidemic is a national security issue, and a threat to global security. And, we couldn’t agree more with the American people that a travel ban must be put in place to protect our homeland and reduce any spread of the virus.
According to officials at the State Department, between March 1, 2014, and September 27, 2014, a total of 6, 398 visas were issued to nationals of the following countries; 3,135 for Liberians, 1,472 for Sierra Leoneans, and 1,791 for Guineans. Meanwhile, according to International SOS, dozens of countries – including many in Africa – have instituted travel and entry restrictions.
We urge you to immediately cease issuing visas to persons of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, and to consider expanding this ban to other countries that may not have standards in place to properly screen travelers entering the United States. We also urge you to more strongly use tools at your disposal to receive flight manifests ahead of time to screen and turn away passengers if they have traveled to or are coming from countries with an Ebola outbreak.
At this point, you and your administration must consider all options to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus. Dismissing a travel ban or a moratorium on visa issuances sends a signal that you’re not serious about containing the outbreak and preventing infections of individuals on U.S. soil. We implore you to immediately use your statutory authority under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants who are detrimental to the interests of the United States.
Earlier a report from Breitbart revealed the Obama administration started streamlining West African visas in August, despite the deadly and contagious disease raging out of control with a mortality rate of 70 percent.
Up until this point, the White House has refused to put the possibility of a travel ban or restrictions on the table. A Washington Post poll released earlier this week shows 67 percent of Americans support restrictions on entry to the United States.
Where are my senators?
(CRICKETS)
Bout freakin time
And there’s the only guy working, in the senate, the good Senator Cruz, front and center. God protect home, no doubt gathering more flak than an A~10 over ISIS territory
Prayers up for him
He called for this a week ago
Yeah only when something has the potential to personally bite them right on the ass do they crawl out of the woodwork. How impeaching this a-hole instead of writing him a freakin’ letter?
“And there’s the only guy working, in the senate, the good Senator Cruz, front and center...”
Prayers up that Sen. Cruz may cruz to victory.
BTTT
Why does the letter start with “dear”?
How about “You effing bastard,”...
Just spoke w nice staffer from Henry curl lard office
Please call congress and tell them that we must be deadly serious about containing Ebola by strict quarantine within the United States and from infected nations. This is our right and our duty and it is THEIR duty to protect US.
Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121 or Google your congressman or senator and get his contact information and call him / her office directly. You can also call or go to their local offices.
I believe decisive response is urgent because you can’t put this Ebola genie back in the bottle once it gets out. It is a fire, it consumes all the fuel it can get and the fuel is people. The only way to stop a fire is to block it from the fuel or cool it with water. A vaccine or medicine to treat Ebola would be the water and we don’t have reliable, enough or any.
Every possible measure must be taken to stop the spread before draconian measures are imposed. What is being done now is sloppy. We are walking a dangerous road. The threat is blossoming by the day if not hour. Almost every hour there is some new Ebola development and none of them are good. This is a serious and potentially deadly event. Unchecked it could destroy or weaken the United States and facilitate our destruction by others. It has that potential for every country and that is why so many are responding with such strict quarantines. These consequences, no matter how small the probabilities, demand a full effort and significant response.
Ebola is being spread here in the United States right now. First Texas, then Ohio then? Terror is an excellent weapon. It disrupts, confuses, paralyzes and destroys a society. Many others and we on FR have speculated that terrorists may spread Ebola. How do you that remember 9/11 feel right now compared to what you felt then? Do you want to gather your loved ones near you to protect them? I do. Even more than I did on September 11, 2001! Isn’t this passive response by this administration accomplishing the very same things a terrorist would want?
When something is being done that makes as little sense as what Obama is doing there has to be some other reason. I leave it to you dear reader to draw your own conclusions as to the reasons.
What is happening now is insane. It makes no sense at all. For example the head of CDC says: “Stopping travel from Africa won’t do any good because you have to get people into Africa to fight Ebola.” “You can’t get Ebola from an infected person on a bus but an infected person should never be on a bus because he can infect others.” “Blocking travel from infected countries would damage their fragile economies.” What about ours? What about our safety? What about resources we have paid for that should be protecting us?
Even the most despotic dictatorship in Africa has acted to protect his nation by strict quarantine and stopping travel from infected countries. Even CDC, the UN and WHO advocate and credit strict quarantine for nipping the spread of Ebola in the bud at the source in places like Senegal and Nigeria where both have had faster and more successful outbreak controls than we have had here. 35 countries have stopped travel of people from infected West African countries. It is so obvious even a child could understand it so why is it OK for people from infected countries to travel here?
I will post this message and keep posting it until someone stops me.
For further reference:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3216461/posts
“The laws allow the president considerable room for exercise of executive judgment.”
The Constitution done not give the president the power to nullify laws made by Congress
These people, including Jeh Johnson, all have this demonic look in their eyes and overall energy. I mean this in the truest sense of the word. They are possessed or darn close to it.
My premise is that the president is acting within the power the law grants to the executive. The law provides the executive the right to waive, expedite, etc. Further, the president has power over "refugee" immigration, outside of statutory law.
Superficially, 8 USC 1182 (a)(1)(A)(i) prohibits granting of a even a non-immigration (visitor) visa to a person with a communicable disease.
(a) Classes of aliens ineligible for visas or admissionBut the law allows waiver.
Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, aliens who are inadmissible under the following paragraphs are ineligible to receive visas and ineligible to be admitted to the United States:
(1) Health-related grounds
(A) In general
Any alien--
(i) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to have a communicable disease of public health significance
I don't see any remark in the senators' letter that asserts the president is in violation of the law. It just urges the president to use his discretion in a certain way. A sort of "friendly advice" letter, which has the primary purpose of giving the signing senator's what they perceive as political points, something useful come election time.
I believe it.
Or how about: Dear Resident 0bama, you effing bastard?
Just halting the visas? How about retroactively invalidating the visas for any traveler from any African country in or near the current hot zone? Back to June 1st sounds good to me.
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE.
WHILE THE COUNTRY BURNS OBAMA IS PLAYING HIS FIDDLE.
Missed a great opportunity to address the letter to President Obola.
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