More fresh hell from the Ebola front:  On Thursday a man on a flight from Nigeria to JFK Airport in New York died during that flight after a fit of vomiting. The 63-year-old man had boarded an Arik Air flight out of Lagos Wednesday evening, and shortly before the plane landed he began vomiting, and eventually died.

The ever-vigilant Centers for Disease Control personnel were called to the scene, conducted a quick examination of the body, and declared “No Ebola here!”, whereupon they turned over the body to the Port Authority for removal.

Outraged? So was Rep. Peter King (R-NY) when he heard of this. He fired off a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection. He noted that between 70-100 people per day (italics mine) arrive at JFK from Ebola-affected African countries, and that the protocols put into place to protect travelers are woefully inadequate.

King, however, would also like to see all flights from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia suspended. While Nigeria, where the deceased man was a resident, has not had any new cases of Ebola in the past month, it has had 19 cases previously confirmed.

Yet Nigeria has experienced some measure of success in curbing Ebola, and that is because it has closed its borders. So have Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal. South Africa and Zambia have added air travel and entry restrictions, and Kenya has completely stopped flights from Ebola-affected nations.

Yet the Obama Administration continues to stubbornly refuse any talk of curtailing flights from west Africa. White House press secretary Josh Earnest surmised that a ban on travel could make the situation worse by encouraging people to evade authorities and “go underground.” Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) found this notion ridiculous. As he put it, “That’s like saying all children with chicken pox should stay in school so we know where they are.”

But would banning flights from Ebola-countries allow us to sigh with relief? Perhaps not.

On Thursday evening I had the privilege of hearing Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach address a group of conservative voters. Let me give you a bit of background here on this rising conservative star:  Kobach is a former law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City — and a real law professor I might add, not a “law lecturer,” like a certain President. He has given Kansas some of the most comprehensive voter reform laws in America. He has also managed to irritate such left-wing groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center, Right Wing Watch, and every hippie’s favorite publication, Mother Jones.

So tonight I really took notice when Secretary of State Kobach warned that even if we close down flights, our open borders still provide an opportunity for illegal immigrants from Ebola-affected nations to enter. All they need to do, he said, is to fly to Mexico City, pay a coyote a sum of money, and poof! here they come over our porous border.

Think it wouldn’t happen? Think again. Earlier this month a man from Eritrea was arrested after illegally entering the country. Eritrea is in east Africa — not near the three Ebola nations — but if he got in, who’s to say someone carrying the Ebola virus couldn’t enter? And consider this:  it wouldn’t take very many infected people to start a small outbreak in Texas or Arizona.

There was a time in this country when we truly guarded our borders — we were vigilant about who entered, and who was given the great honor of becoming a citizen. Earlier this week on the radio I heard Mark Levin talk about the requirements for entering the United States at Ellis Island back in 1903. My interest was particularly piqued as my maternal grandparents had immigrated from Germany at roughly this time, and they would have encountered many of the regulations required at Ellis Island. Some of the questions steamship authorities were required to answer of their immigrant passengers included:

• The calling or occupation;
• Whether able to read or write;
• The nationality;
• The race;
• Whether going to join a relative or friend, and if so, what relative or friend, and his name and complete address;
• Whether ever in a prison or almshouse or an institution or hospital for the care and treatment of the insane or supported by charity;
• What is the alien’s condition of health, mental and physical, and whether deformed or crippled, and if so, for how long and from what cause.

Yes, some of the wording is harsh and insensitive, and certainly not politically correct. Consider that these words emerged from a time when knowledge of health and disability were much more limited than now. But also consider that these immigration laws were written with the expectation of protecting the nation from those who would harm her people.

And this apparently is not something that is high on President Obama’s priority list.