Fauci Stresses That Immigrants Are “Absolutely Not” Responsible for Uptick in Coronavirus Infections in U.S.

Speaking on CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, stressed that immigrants are “absolutely not” responsible for the uptick in Covid-19 infections across the United States.

“This is not driven by immigrants,” Fauci told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“This is the problem within our country, the same way it’s a problem with other countries throughout the world,” he said. “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.”

Fauci said that “the driving force” of Covid-19 infections nationwide “is within our own country.” 

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A majority of Republicans believe, with no evidence, that immigrants and tourists are responsible for the recent surge of Covid-19 infections, according to a recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Republican politicians have also echoed these falsehoods.

In August, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) made that outlandish claim that Democrats are “plucking” sick children from the U.S.-Mexico border and planting them around the country as part of a larger plan to “seed” the highly contagious Delta variant across the country.

“They’re taking kids from down at the border who may have it, and they’re plucking them up and putting them all over the United States, as if they’re wishing to seed the country with a new variant. It’s an awful thing to do,” Paul said on Fox News at the time.

Alan Herrera

Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.