The military’s top official responsible for Latin America says he’s concerned illegal immigrants from West Africa could already be sneaking across the porous southern border carrying Ebola, adding a new potential danger the White House will have to grapple with.
Already, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have panned President Obama’s new proposal to start taking the temperature of passengers arriving from West Africa at five U.S. airports.
The bipartisan group of congressmen told Mr. Obama to issue a full-blown travel ban prohibiting citizens of affected countries from entering the U.S., and imposing a quarantine on any travelers who arrive from West Africa.
But legal channels may not be the only vulnerability. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, said he was in Costa Rica last week and encountered an embassy employee who’d run across a handful of Liberian men preparing to be smuggled into the U.S. as illegal immigrants.
“Anything can ride on the network,” Gen. Kelly said this week at the National Defense University in Washington.
He said the danger is two-fold: Not only might illegal immigrants from Africa enter the U.S. unchecked, but if Ebola spreads to Central America it could spark a new wave of illegal immigration to the U.S. that would make this summer’s surge “look like a small problem.”
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