Overlooking Southern Command on Ebola?

National Journal ran a piece earlier this week implying, albeit subtly, that lawmakers and candidates for office who maintain that the United States should secure its southern border to prevent further migration of the Ebola virus into the country are not to be taken seriously.

The opening line of the piece, titled “These Politicians Want to Close the U.S.-Mexico Border Because of Ebola” reads:

Mexico has never seen a case of Ebola before. But for some politicians worried about a potential outbreak of the deadly virus on American soil, that doesn’t matter.

And later:

…Ebola could indeed enter the U.S. through someone traveling to the country—and it has, but not through Mexico. Thomas Eric Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian man who flew from Monrovia to Texas last month, died Wednesday of the disease in a Dallas hospital.

But there have been no reported cases of Ebola-infected migrants entering the U.S. through the border with Mexico.

Interestingly, this ran on the same day that Gen. John Kelly, Chief of U.S. Southern Command, voiced his own concerns regarding the implications of Ebola in Latin America, were that to come about:

The Pentagon’s top commander in South America has warned that if Ebola surfaces in Central America or the Caribbean, there will be a stampede of people heading north across the Rio Grande to the U.S. to escape the disease.

“If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Marine General John Kelly, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, said Tuesday. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.”

Maybe the folks at National Journal misplaced the phone number for Southern Command.

Exit question, as an aside: To stampede across the Rio Grande to the U.S., those coming from Central America fleeing or seeking treatment for Ebola would have to cross through Mexico – how would Mexico respond at its own southern border?