The difference is btwn a non-citizen lying about his health to board the plane and likely infecting others and expecting free gov. care, versus Kent Brantly and co-worker:
Although the State Department said it had been involved in facilitating the evacuations from Liberia, Emory said Samaritans Purse was paying for the transportation and care of the workers. Dr. Ribner said that Emory officials had communicated with state and county regulators about the patients, but that the air ambulance service, the Phoenix Air Group, had been responsible for securing the necessary clearances to bring the two to the United States...
From the time the air ambulance arrives in the metropolitan Atlanta area, up to and including being hospitalized at Emory University Hospital, he said, we have taken every precaution that we know and that our colleagues at the C.D.C. know to ensure that there is no spread of this virus pathogen.
Although social media sites have been replete with misgivings about Emorys plan, many people near the hospital said it did not bother them, partly because the disease centers and their high-security laboratories have long been part of the Atlanta landscape.
Weve already got smallpox and all that other crap at the C.D.C., Joey Voll, who works at a bookstore near the hospital, said with a shrug soon after Dr. Ribners news conference on Friday. - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/us/kent-brantley-nancy-writebol-ebola-treatment-atlanta.html?_r=0
Side note:
On 4 September, a Boston physician, Rick Sacra, was airlifted from Liberia to be treated in Omaha at the Nebraska Medical Center. Working for Serving In Mission (SIM), he is the third US missionary to contract EVD.[115] He believes he probably contracted Ebola while performing a caesarean section on a patient who had not been diagnosed with the disease. While in hospital, Sacra received a blood transfusion from Kent Brantly, who had recently recovered from the disease. On 25 September, Sacra was declared Ebola free and released from hospital.[116]
Thus rather than causing more death, the Christian missionaries at least saved at least one.
They are the very first individuals to have ever receive this agent, Dr. Bruce Ribner, director of Emorys Infectious Disease Unit, told a news conference. There is no prior experience with it, and frankly, we do not know whether it helped them, whether it made no difference, or even, theoretically, if it delayed their recovery. - http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/what-cured-ebola-patients-kent-brantly-nancy-writebol-n186131
Ebola survivor Kent Brantly met with President Obama in the Oval Office
No record if he coughed.