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The Coronavirus and China’s Travel Ban

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By: Michael Cutler

Concerns about the spread of the current outbreak of the Coronavirus that apparently originated in Wuhan Province, China have caused governments around the world to implement measures to protect their citizens in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease.

To this point, on January 27, 2020 USA Today reported, “Coronavirus screenings to expand to 15 new US airports; CDC warns against travel to China.”

The need to step up screening of arriving passengers who might have contracted the virus is being broadly welcomed by a wide variety of political leaders, including those politicians who have consistently and stridently opposed immigration law enforcement and meaningful efforts to secure America’s porous borders.

Indeed, on January 24, 2020, New Jersey Senator Bob Melendez posted a news release on his official website, “Booker, Menendez demand coronavirus screenings at Newark airport as illness spreads.”

It is more than a bit hypocritical that these same open-borders politicians, who steadfastly opposed the construction of a wall to secure the highly porous southern border of the United States, now want to increase the scrutiny of those who enter the country. It is obvious that aliens who evade the inspections process upon entering the United States face no inspection whatsoever, making it impossible to screen these individuals for possibly carrying the deadly virus.

The inspections process conducted at U.S. ports of entry has its origins at such facilities as Ellis Island which, when it opened in 1892, was the largest hospital facility in the United States. Of prime concern was the need to prevent the entry of aliens who had dangerous communicable diseases and whose presence in the United States might touch off an epidemic, aliens who suffered from serious mental illness or were physically incapable of working to support themselves.

In fact, under 8 U.S. Code § 1182 (Inadmissible aliens), a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the first ground for excluding aliens from the United States today pertains to health-related issues.

While millions of immigrants passed through Ellis Island during its decades in operation on their way to their new lives in the United States, some aspiring immigrants were denied entry and consequently they and their families were forced to make a brutal decision, when one family member was deemed inadmissible while the other members of the family were admitted. Should those families split up and enter the U.S. while one or more members of their family were forced to return to their native country, or should they all return home to keep their family intact?

This cold, hard reality about Ellis Island is all but ignored by the open borders advocates such as New York’s Governor Cuomo, who has vilified immigration law enforcement officers, referring to them as “thugs” and signing into law a bill that provides illegal aliens with driver’s licenses while blocking immigration law enforcement personnel from accessing DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Databases unless and until such personnel provide a signed court order (and it would take days after the request is made for any such information to be provided to federal immigration law enforcement authorities).

Nevertheless, as I pointed out in my article from last January, “Secure Borders Protect Immigrant Communities,” Cuomo decided to be sworn in for his third term as New York State’s Governor at Ellis Island, a quarantine station run by Public Health and immigration authorities.

This was also the focus of my March 2019 article, “Open Borders Are Dangerous To Our (Public) Health,” in which I noted that Ellis Island was a quarantine station.

Hypocrisy is alive and well and inhabits New York State’s Governor’s Mansion.

Another point worth considering is how, in the face of increasing concerns about the growing numbers of people sickened by the Coronavirus, China has imposed a strict “travel ban” shutting down buses and trains and shuttering such public venues as movie theaters.

No one has decried this decision because of concerns that the deadly virus could infect ever more people.

However, I am compelled to point out that when President Trump, shortly after his inauguration, invoked a section of standing law to prevent the entry of aliens who could not be effectively vetted to save lives by preventing the entry of terrorists, the mainstream media immediately proclaimed that his Executive Order constituted a “travel ban” and falsely claimed that this ban was designed to prevent the entry of citizens of “Muslim majority countries.”

In reality, Trump’s Executive Order was unnecessary. All he needed to do was to issue a proclamation to invoke the already existing law. Under section (f), the same statute I noted above, the President has absolute authority to block the entry of aliens if he determines that the presence of such aliens would be “detrimental to the best interests of the United States.”

Here is the direct quote from that statute:

8 U.S. Code § 1182:

(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

Indeed, the President ultimately did issue such a proclamation and, with minor tweaks, the Supreme Court upheld his authority as President to take that action.

On January 22, 2020, NPR reported, “Trump Says He’ll Add ‘A Few Countries’ To Controversial U.S. Travel Ban.” North Korea and Venezuela are certainly not “Muslim majority countries,” yet they are on the list while Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority country, is not.

Unfortunately, President Trump has come to use the language of his opponents to describe his action, referring to it as a “travel ban.” I contend that “The Trump ‘Travel Ban’ Is Actually an Entry Restriction.”

Here is the bottom line: dead is dead. Terrorists and viruses have the potential to kill and, indeed, create massive numbers of casualties.

It is abundantly clear that to the globalists and to the Radical Left, President Trump can never be right. His prudent measures to protect our nation and our citizens from the omnipresent Damoclean Sword of terrorism, transnational gangs and the flood of deadly illegal drugs into our country that annually kills tens of thousands of innocent victims, are ridiculed and scorned by his adversaries who promulgate “Sanctuary Policies” that shield sociopathic criminals from detection and action by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) personnel while endangering innocent victims.

Voltaire said you should judge the intelligence of a man by the questions he asks.

This then, must be the question that must be asked of the voters by candidates who seek to defeat the politicians who have foisted anarchy on law-abiding citizens across our nation: “Are you safer and better off since your town, city or state has been proclaimed a ‘sanctuary’ for illegal aliens by the current political ‘leaders’ of our city/state?”

(FrontPageMag)

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