Endangered GOP Sen. Pat Roberts today called on President Barack Obama to support an Ebola travel ban.
“I have no confidence in how the Obama administration is managing the Ebola crisis, and neither do the people of Kansas,” Robert said Oct. 14, as a new poll showed him at 41 percent– only three points behind his Democratic-leaning rival, independent Greg Orman.
“I call on the president to actually lead on this issue, take emergency action and protect American lives before we have an epidemic here at home,” said Roberts, a conservative who has voted against many progressive goals, such as the immigration increased require by the Senate’s June 2013 immigration rewrite.
“We cannot afford to be reactive or ‘lead from behind’ with a deadly and easily spread threat like Ebola… We cannot afford the risk of President Obama’s inaction and failure to lead. American’s are frightened, and they deserve better,” Robert said.
Roberts’ call came shortly after The Washington Post and ABC reported that 67 percent of Americans want a ban against the entry of people from Ebola-stricken countries.
Only 29 percent of the adults in the poll support Obama’s opposition to a travel ban. Progressives say a ban would discriminate against non-Americans.
Instead of a travel ban, Obama’s deputies say they can detect diseased people by checking their temperatures as they arrive at U.S. airports.
At least 4,000 people have died from the plague in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
A Liberian flew into the United States on Sept. 12, and passed the disease to at least one American– a nurse in Dallas.
Officials are now tracking people who came into contact with the dead Liberian, to determine if any other Americans caught the disease, which kills roughly 70 percent of the victims.
A growing number of GOP and Democratic politicians, including Virginia’s Sen. Mark Warner and his GOP rival, Ed Gillespie, have called for a new curbs.