Mexico to vaccinate migrants
MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s president said on Wednesday he was ready to provide coronavirus vaccines to undocumented migrants in the United States, after the governor of Nebraska said they would likely not get vaccinated due to immigration status.
“It’s a universal right. We would do it,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a regular government news conference when asked if Mexico would vaccinate undocumented migrants in the United States, many of which are Mexican nationals.
He did not elaborate on how his government would execute such a plan, or which migrants would qualify.
The comments on Tuesday about workers at Nebraska’s meat-packing plants by state governor Pete Ricketts had provoked criticism from public health and migrant advocates.
“You’re supposed to be a legal resident of the country to be able to be working in those plants, so I do not expect that illegal immigrants will be part of that vaccine with that program,” he told a briefing.
The Washington-based Migration Policy Institute estimates 11% of Nebraska’s meatpacking workers — and 10% of the workers nationwide — lack legal immigration status.
Widespread Covid-19 outbreaks occurred at meat-packing plants in the United States in the spring, helping spread the virus around rural America.
Roberto Velasco, a senior Mexican diplomat for North America, responded to Mr Ricketts on Tuesday night.
“To deprive undocumented essential workers of #covid19 vaccination goes against basic human rights,” he wrote on Twitter, citing text from the UN’s declaration of human rights.
Among critics of Mr Ricketts’ statement was US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Imagine being so racist that you go out of your way to ensure that the people who prepare *your* food are unvaccinated,” she wrote on Twitter.
The question of vaccines access based on citizenship has become contentious in some parts of the world. For instance, rights groups have expressed outrage that Palestinians in the Israelioccupied West Bank and Gaza Strip face a long wait for vaccines.