Ebola tourist Thomas Duncan: what were visa issuers THINKING?

As a podcast on iTunes, listenable/downloadable onscreen at Taki’s Magazine, or as a transcript here.

One segment of this week’s broadcast passes comment on the Liberian man hospitalized in Dallas with Ebola.

The main takeaway from this story is the utter gibbering insanity of our immigration system. It’s not just: “Why are we allowing anyone in from Liberia when there’s a deadly epidemic raging there?” It’s: “Why did we let this guy in?”

Over at the Center for Immigration Studies website, Jessica Vaughan asks some pertinent questions. Longish quote from her:

“According to his Facebook page and other reports, Duncan is a 40-something, single, unemployed Liberian living in Ghana who applied sometime in the last year for a visa to visit his sister in the United States.

“That is five strikes against his application:

1. Single,
2. Unemployed,
3. Liberian (5th highest overstay rate of any country in the world),
4. Living outside country of citizenship,
5. Sister living in the United States.

“Together, all these factors should have weighed very heavily against the issuance of a visitor’s visa to Duncan. He clearly appears unqualified.

“In 2013, more than 3,500 non-immigrant visas were issued to Liberians. This number has grown steadily since 2009, when just over 1,300 were issued. Most are issued to tourists and business travelers. A relatively high percentage do not return, but settle here illegally to join a well-established Liberian community …

“The federal government has yet to disclose the details of Duncan’s immigration history, but it is fair to ask why he was issued a visa in the first place?”

End quote. I’d actually replace Jessica’s closing question with a slightly different one: Who gets denied a non-immigrant visa nowadays?

Just a footnote to all that: Why would Liberians want to come and settle here? Wasn’t that country established so that American blacks could escape from the hellish oppression of white supremacy? And wasn’t that, like, 200 years ago? Don’t they have a thriving, harmonious, prosperous nation going there now — a West African Denmark? If not, why not? Oh right: “legacy of slavery.” I always forget about that.

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