Saying that he is now "putting my foot down," CD15 Congressman Dennis Ross announced today that he is sponsoring legislation that would ban commercial air flights and the issuance of visas to counties affected by the Ebola virus. It comes a day after House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement that a temporary ban on travel to the U.S. from countries affected by Ebola is something that President Obama "should absolutely consider.""These bans will be lifted when the outbreak is declared to be contained and no longer a threat," Ross said in a statement this afternoon. "I feel that discontinuing air travel is an obvious first step solution to combating Ebola in the United States. It’s frightening that our Commander in Chief presumes that Ebola will not spread in the United States and is only taking delicate precautions. Ebola has a death rate of 50%. How can you ignore this fact, and take a gambit with American lives by allowing people to travel to and from countries where the virus is quickly spreading?"
Ross and Pinellas County Congressman David Jolly previously penned a letter with over 20 GOP colleagues asking the President to consider a travel ban. However that was when only when there was two people in America who had contracted the disease from West Africa - NBC News cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, and Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan. Since then two Dallas nurses who worked with Duncan, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, have also been stricken with Ebola.
Congressman Ross rhetorically asks of President Obama regarding the high fatality rate of those who contract the virus, "How can you ignore this fact, and take a gambit with American lives by allowing people to travel to and from countries where the virus is quickly spreading?"
Although some are painting the criticism of President Obama on this issue in partisan terms, in fact Orlando area Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson, the liberal firebrand loathed by Republicans, said more than two months ago that the president should ban travel from West Africa. Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson has also called for a travel ban. Today he said that there should be an Ebola czar, a suggestion that John McCain made last Sunday on CNN.
“Now that two of our health care workers have contracted the virus I am putting my foot down," Ross writes. "This legislation is a more serious approach to preventing Ebola from further infiltrating our homeland. Airport security screening is a complete smoke and mirror approach to the virus and Americans aren’t buying it. I urge my colleagues to sign onto this legislation and hope Speaker Boehner will quickly call Congress back into session to debate my legislation.”