Over the past several weeks, anti-immigration groups have jumped on the Ebola crisis in an effort to push their own cause, using the disease to stir up generalized xenophobic fears of disease-ridden foreigners.
In an interview with Janet Mefferd yesterday, the Federation for Immigration Reform’s Ira Mehlman called for a travel ban from West African countries facing Ebola outbreaks — a move that experts warn would do nothing to stop the spread of the disease and might even make it worse.
After Mehlman attempted to connect the Ebola crisis with undocumented immigration, saying “people with diseases” are coming across our “open borders,” Mefferd asked if “the refusal of the president to stop the flights coming from West Africa is due to his amnesty ideology.”
“You know, I think it’s probably due to a combination of factors and his amnesty agenda is probably one of them,” Mehlman responded.
Later in the program, Mefferd wondered if “a terrorist intentionally injected with Ebola” might “come into an American hospital” to infect people — a rumor that the FBI director has said there is no evidence to support.
“You can certainly speculate that people might do that and it’s something that we ought to be concerned about,” Mehlman said. “So, again, these are all the reasons why we have immigration laws and why they need to be enforced.”
