Dr. Anthony Fauci denied the premise that immigrants are to blame for the ongoing spread of the Wuhan coronavirus in the United States, he said in an interview on Sunday.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the President, made his remarks in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bush on a ‘State of the Union’ segment. His response was prompted by findings from a recent poll that show that 55 percent of Republicans blame foreigners and immigrants for the spread of COVID-19.
“If you just look at the data and look at the people who’ve gotten infected, look at the people who are in the hospital, look at the people who’ve died… This is not driven by immigrants. This is the problem within our country the same way it’s a problem with other countries throughout the world. The idea, when you have 700,000 Americans dead and millions and millions and millions of Americans getting infected, you don’t want to look outside to the problem. The problem is within our own country. Certainly immigrants can get infected, but they’re not the driving force of this. Let’s face reality here.”
Last week, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, slammed President Biden’s handling of the border crisis and said it is becoming a “public health crisis,” as we reported.
“Right now, under Joe Biden, we simply have open borders. It is an absolute catastrophe,” Cruz said in a Fox News interview. “I’ve been to our southern border many many times, it’s worse than I’ve ever seen it. We are right now on a path to over two million illegal immigrants crossing into this country this year under Joe Biden. It’s the worst illegal immigration we’ve had in 21 years.”