Why?
In theory, requiring a COVID-19 vaccine to enter the United States as a non-citizen might make sense if the vaccines prevented the transmission of the virus to others.
Like it or not, the government has vast powers during declared emergencies. That is why the Executive Branch loves such emergencies in the first place. They allow the Executive to impose rules that would otherwise require Congressional consent.
But it is well established–in fact it is beyond dispute–that even were the vaccines completely safe, they are ineffective in achieving the policy goal of preventing the spread of a communicable disease. Given that fact, it is impossible to come up with either a motive or a justification for extending the requirement for anybody to get the vaccine.
Yet the TSA is extending a Biden-era mandate requiring foreigners entering the country to be vaccinated.
[T]hese policies are intended to limit the risk that COVID-19, including variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, is introduced, transmitted, and spread into and throughout the United States, potentially overwhelming United States healthcare and public health resources, endangering the health and safety of the American people, and threatening the security of our civil aviation system. Given the resumption of air travel as worldwide restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic begin to ease, these policies will, consistent with the measures required by Executive Order 13998 of January 21, 2021 (Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel), advance the safety and security of the air traveling public, the government personnel responsible for ensuring the security of air travel, and the millions of individuals employed by the United States air travel industry, as well as their families and communities, while also allowing the domestic and global economy to continue its recovery from the effects of the COVID19 pandemic. In an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19, all foreign air carriers must perform the measures described in this EA.
The supposed reasoning for the order is spelled out: it is “intended to limit the risk that COVID-19, including variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, is introduced, transmitted, and spread into and throughout the United States, potentially overwhelming United States healthcare and public health resources, endangering the health and safety of the American people, and threatening the security of our civil aviation system.”
Except we know that the premise used to justify the order is based upon a falsehood. Being vaccinated neither prevents one from getting the virus nor transmitting the disease to others. Whatever other justifications an individual might have to get the injection, prevention is not a legitimate one. At best the vaccine is a “pre-treatment” for people that may reduce the severity of the infection. As such, it is reasonable to give people a choice to take the treatment or not, but unreasonable to require it based upon a false claim that doing so will benefit the US in any way.
This has nothing to do with “following the science,” because “the science” doesn’t support the assertions. Nor does it have any reasonable bearing on potential threats to “overwhelm the US health care system,” because we take no similar measures to prevent injury to individuals who enter the country. We could reduce the burden on the health care system by preventing non-citizens from engaging in risk activities such as skiing, mountain climbing, professional sports, or any other of a number of activities that might reasonably land somebody in the hospital and burden the health care system.
We could even require proof of cardiac health, or proof of no probably disabling disease. We could prevent medical tourism. We do none of these things. This is solely about COVID, which is now an endemic disease circulating in the US already.
In other words, this is absurd, and aimed at continuing the fiction that COVID is still an “emergency” requiring extraordinary Executive powers.
As usual, it isn’t about the “emergency.” It is about the accumulation of power.
