Ebola

With planes being grounded in my home state of Ohio and hospital workers in Texas contracting Ebola, Americans now have stark examples of the danger of President Barack Obama’s policies.

Obama has refused to impose a travel ban on flights from Ebola-stricken African countries for political reasons. He does not want to quarantine people who have been in those regions during the past month because it would hurt the already fledgling prospects of Democrats during this midterm election. Our campaigner-in-chief is now dangerously derelict in his official duties.

But this weakness on a Ebola travel ban is simply an extension of his larger, pro-amnesty, open border position. While promising voters in 2008 that he would secure the border, it is clear that not only is the border not a priority, but Obama is promising to use an executive order to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in this country. In addition, not only are deportations down 15 percent this calendar year, the Obama administration is already secretly preparing to print permits for approximately 11 million illegal immigrants.

The president is acutely aware that the more impoverished immigrants come to America, the more muscle Democrats have to expand social welfare programs and ensure electoral victories. But at what cost?

Look up "likely visa overstay" in the dictionary, and you should find a picture of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who is the first Ebola case diagnosed within the United States, and who is now being treated in a Dallas hospital.

This looks like another good case for the consular officers training manual of a non-immigrant visa that never should have been issued, but which could have serious public health consequences, not to mention monetary costs.

According to his Facebook page and other reports, Duncan is a 40-something, single, unemployed Liberian living in Ghana who applied sometime in the last year for a visa to visit his sister in the United States.

That is five strikes against his application:

1. Single
2. Unemployed
3. Liberian (5th highest overstay rate of any country in the world)
4. Living outside country of citizenship
5. Sister living in the United States.

Together, all these factors should have weighed very heavily against the issuance of a visitor's visa to Duncan. He clearly appears unqualified.

In 2013, more than 3,500 non-immigrant visas were issued to Liberians. This number has grown steadily since 2009, when just over 1,300 were issued. Most are issued to tourists and business travelers. A relatively high percentage do not return, but settle here illegally to join a well-established Liberian community (many of whom have won green cards in the visa lottery).

The federal government has yet to disclose the details of Duncan's immigration history, but it is fair to ask why he was issued a visa in the first place? More importantly, what steps are being taken to prevent others who may be infected from entering the country?