DON VINCENZO writes:

Given my time spent overseas in six different U.S. embassies, my first reaction to Eric Duncan’s arrival in this country and subsequent hospitalization with Ebola was to raise this question: how did this man ever get a visa to travel here legally in the first place? For openers, by any and all standards, giving him a visa was a near certainty that another immigrant would remain here permanently.

There were several telltale signs that would have, at least in my years in embassies, prevented any consular officer, a role that I did not generally have unless assigned to do so over a weekend or an emergency, from issuing that visa, amongst them that Duncan was single and basically unemployed, had lived in Ghana, which demonstrated a tenuous connection to Liberia, and had family in the U.S. It should also be noted that Liberia has one of the world’s highest levels of visa overstays, another strike against him. And, of course, there is the question of the Ebola presence in that region, which should make all of the other issues moot.

Consular officers get their marching orders from above, and the Obama administration’s intentional discarding of visa requirements – along with its calculated indifference to enforcement of the southern border security – make the U.S. an open bazaar for future importation of Third World disease. The Foreign Service at one time acted as a sentinel, alerting our government to the potential dangers arising overseas, but it has been transformed into another Goodwill Company, and, in so doing, has lost its raison d’etre.  Truth is, I doubt if any future president will change that.

As a result, I am reminded of the title of Lawrence Auster’s booklet about such dangers created by untrammeled immigration and its attendant problems, and a harbinger of what may very well happen here: The Path to National Suicide.

Henry McCulloch writes:

I was struck by a New York Times story I read this morning which presents Mr. Duncan as a long-suffering victim of circumstances who only wanted to be reunited with his family.  Although the NYT won’t say so, it is clear to me that Duncan fully intended illegally to overstay the visitor’s visa the idiots in the U.S. State Department had given him: he had quit his job in Monrovia without explanation and the story mentions nothing about Duncan’s having made any arrangements to find work when he returned to Liberia.  I’m sure Duncan has no intention to return to Liberia, almost as sure as I am that the Obama regime will find a way for Duncan to remain permanently in the United States, should he survive his illness.  The article does at least mention that Duncan lied to screeners about whether or not he had been in contact with any Ebola sufferers.  He had, but said no.  Notice that it was screeners, presumably Liberian, in Monrovia who asked.  There is no mention of any U.S. Customs functionary’s having asked him about that, nor that anyone did in Belgium as he was passing through the Brussels airport.

Duncan and the “community” of Liberians squatting in Dallas (how did they get there, and why are they there in the first place?) are portrayed sympathetically throughout, and it’s clear the Left is guiding us to think of Mr. Duncan as a war-tossed refugee just looking for A Better Life, instead of as Ebola Eric of 2014.

In response to this, I find myself praying four things:  First, that Thomas Eric Duncan make a full and complete recovery; second, that Duncan infect no-one else; third, that Duncan be removed from the United States as soon as possible, after criminal proceedings if warranted; and, fourth, that the Obama regime suffer as much political damage from this fiasco as possible.

Please follow and like us: