Sen. Richard Durbin (D- Ill.) is trying to blame House Republicans for the deadly spread of the Ebola virus.
About 5,000 people have become ill from Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal since the outbreak was first recognized in March. At least 2,400 people have died from the disease. The World Health Organization believes the number of people impacted could soon rise to more than 20,000.
Durbin said that the House Republicans’ opposition to a comprehensive immigration reform bill is the reason for the lack of trained doctors in African nations to handle this crisis, according to the Washington Times. The immigration bill, which passed the Senate last year and has not been brought up for a House vote, required some doctors to remain in their home countries in Africa before they could be “recruited” to practice in the U.S, Durbin said.
“We included in the immigration reform bill, which passed the United States Senate, a provision which provided, in one respect, if you are medically trained in Africa and promise to serve in Africa for a period of time before going anywhere else, we would honor that and respect that and not allow people to be recruited into the United States if they still had an obligation to their country,” he said at a Senate hearing on the Ebola outbreak Tuesday.
“And secondly, that doctors in the United States would be able to serve in these crisis situations overseas without jeopardizing their immigration status. That passed the Senate. That was in the immigration reform bill. It was never called for consideration in the House of Representatives.”
Durbin isn’t even the first Senate Democrat to try and pin some of the blame for the Ebola outbreak on a Republican.
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark., who is fighting against Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to keep his Senate seat , recently released a campaign ad that tried to connect Cotton to the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa.
“Tom Cotton voted against preparing Americans for pandemics like Ebola,” the ad states, referring to a vote in 2013 against some public health programs.
This is what you call grasping at straws.
