On Thursday, Yahoo News quoted Gerardo Sanchez, the Democratic mayor of San Luis, Arizona, criticizing Republican governors for trying to claim migrants and asylum seekers are behind the latest COVID-19 explosions in their states.
"For any governor to blame the crisis of COVID on the asylum seekers, who are people who are seeking protection, it's really not fair," said Sanchez, who also works as a physician's assistant. "It's just another way to blame somebody else for [a] lack of personal responsibility, in my opinion."
"Yes, there are some positive COVID patients who are crossing the border, but you don't have to be undocumented, you don't have to be an asylum seeker, to be positive for COVID," continued Sanchez. "This is our third wave now. We've had two big waves, we cannot all blame them. It's just an easy way, or a scapegoat, to blame someone else. I'm seeing a lot more unvaccinated people, who did not want to get vaccinated, and the more severe cases are those."
Vocal Republican governors who have sought to blame outbreaks on migrants include Arizona's Doug Ducey, who has demanded President Joe Biden continue Trump-era policies that can expel migrants for health reasons, and Florida's Ron DeSantis, who has claimed Biden has "imported the virus from all around the world" with his border policies. Florida in particular is ground zero for transmission of the Delta variant, with tens of thousands of new cases daily.
Fact-checkers have debunked this idea, noting that the Delta variant arrived in the U.S. before Central America, and there are already health-related entry restrictions in place.