House Votes to End CDC Vaccine Requirement for U.S. Visitors
The House on Wednesday voted to eliminate the CDC’s vaccine requirement for U.S. visitors.
Proposed by GOP Representative Thomas Massie, the bill, H.R. 185, would “terminate the requirement imposed by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for proof of COVID-19 vaccination for foreign travelers, and for other purposes.” The measure, which was co-sponsored by 22 Republicans, succeeded in the chamber on a mostly party-line vote of 227-201, with seven Democrats voting along with Republicans to approve it.
The original order, published on April 7, 2022, restricted the entry of non-citizens who are not immigrants into the United States by air travel unless they were fully vaccinated against the virus.
Massie’s measure was forward-thinking, as it also nullified any future vaccine restrictions for foreign visitors as a condition of entry and prohibited “the use of federal funds to administer or enforce such a requirement.”
On the House floor, Massie pointed out the Biden administration’s hypocrisy in maintaining the vaccine requirement for foreigners but allowing unprecedented illegal immigration into the country.
“What’s the logic of having a vaccine mandate on legal international travelers but not on the millions of people who are pouring across our border? Where’s the logic in that?” he asked.
“You want a list of countries that don’t have this mandate? Australia, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Germany, France, Ukraine,” Massie said. “Dictatorships have already gotten rid of this vaccinate mandate. Russia, Syria, China, Cuba even doesn’t have this draconian, xenophobic measure at the border.”
Even with the pandemic in the past, the Biden administration has still not revoked his national emergency concerning Covid which former president Trump made in March 2020. In January, Republican Representative Paul Gosar introduced a resolution to end the national emergency. On January 30, Biden announced that he plans to discontinue both the national emergency and the public-health emergency declarations on May 11, 2023.
“Why does Biden want to delay ending the COVID emergency for another 100 days? Because he wants to use emergency authorities to shove more money out of the door. It’s been 1000+ days to slow the spread. End the COVID emergency NOW,” Massie tweeted on February 1.
