Arizona Speaker of the House Andy Tobin is the latest Republican politician to suggest migrants from Central America might bring the Ebola virus with them to the United States. Tobin, who is seeking the GOP nomination for the state’s 1st Congressional District in Tuesday’s primary, made the connection in an interview published in the Tucson Weekly on Thursday.
Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) started the GOP Ebola fearmongering trend last month when he wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating that “[r]eports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning.” In August, Reps. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) leveled the same charge.
Although allegations of disease-ridden migrants are common throughout history, vaccination rates in Central America are higher than in Texas. And Ebola, which is difficult to contract, is not found in Central America. But Tobin was undeterred.
Per the Weekly:
…Tobin says he’s hearing about worries from constituents that the recent wave of undocumented youth from Central America could cause an Ebola outbreak in the United States.
“Anything’s now possible,” Tobin said last week. “So if you were to say the Ebola virus has now entered (the country), I don’t think anyone would be surprised.”
Tobin acknowledged that Ebola has been limited to outbreaks in Africa, “to the extent that they’re really aware of that. I think there is a reason we should be concerned about it and say, ‘Hey, can you assure us the people crossing the border are not from the Middle East?’…So I use that as an example, that the public would not be surprised to hear about the next calamity at the border.”
But even if there were lots of people crossing the border from the Middle East, they still wouldn’t be bringing Ebola, because Ebola is still confined to sub-Saharan West Africa. Here’s a useful map:
Fortunately for Tobin, though, the bar for misinformed comments on migrants is high in Arizona’s 1st District. State Rep. Adam Kwasman, Tobin’s chief rival for the nomination, became a late-night punch line in July when he protested a YMCA camp bus he mistakenly believed was filled with undocumented youths.
