If the Ebola virus spreads to Central or South America it will be “Katie, bar the door” as people from those countries flock to the U.S., the commander of U.S. Southern Command warned recently.
Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly issued the warning last week at an event at the National Defense University last week, citing the recent influx of 700,000 unaccompanied alien children from Central America as evidence that the U.S. could struggle to prevent the disease from spreading into the U.S.
“There’s no way we can keep Ebola in West Africa,” Kelly said. “If it comes to the Western hemisphere – many countries in the Western hemisphere have about no ability to deal with an Ebola outbreak.”
“It will rage for a period of time,” Kelly predicted.
Based in Florida, Kelly took the helm at the U.S. Southern Command in 2012, which oversees the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
Kelly’s warning comes as West Africa experiences its worst outbreak of Ebola in history. Thousands have died from the virus, which has now spread to the U.S.
Thomas Duncan, an infected Liberian man, died last week in Dallas, Texas. A nurse who helped treat him has also been infected with the gruesome disease.
“There is almost no reason to stay in Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras,” said Kelly. “If Ebola breaks out in Haiti or in Central America I think it is literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ in terms of the mass migration of Central Americans into the United States.”
“They will run away from Ebola,” Kelly said.
According to Kelly, another major concern is the criminal network that helps both contraband and people enter the U.S.
“Anything can ride on the network,” said Kelly. “We know that hundreds and hundreds of tons of drugs” and “thousands of thousands of illegal aliens or immigrants” move on the network.
And it is not just Central and South Americans utilizing the network, Kelly claimed.
“We have a lot of West Africans,” he said. “Of the number of people they capture, a very large percentage of them are West Africans.”
Kelly also shared a story relayed to him by embassy personnel during a recent visit to Costa Rica. The embassy official recounted an interaction with five or six men encountered near the Nicaraguan border. “The embassy person walked over and just asked who they were and they said, well we’re from Liberia. Been on the road about a week, and they’re on the way to New York City. Illegally,” Kelly continued.
“They could have made it to New York City and still be within the incubation period for Ebola,” Kelly said.
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[h/t CNS News]