Lesko remark draws ire
Rep. Debbie Lesko said last week that American citizens and “people that are here legally” deserve to receive COVID-19 vaccinations first, before Hispanics. According to Census Bureau estimates, Lesko’s West Valley district is about 22% Hispanic.
Rep. Debbie Lesko said Hispanics are “very good workers” but implied they are not Americans in comments she made last week during a congressional hearing on vaccine distribution plans.
Lesko, R-Ariz., who represents a West Valley congressional district that includes Sun City, said she had compassion for Hispanics, but also equated them with illegal immigrants in a broad statement condemned as insensitive from at least one of her House colleagues.
“I worked with people that are Hispanic. I mean they’re very good workers,” Lesko said during the hearing. “You know, we’re compassionate people, but for goodness sakes, we have to take care of American citizens, or people that are here legally, first.”
“I’m just not going to be able to explain to my senior citizens that we’re giving away the vaccines to people that (are) here illegally. I just think that’s totally wrong.”
Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is Hispanic, responded on Twitter.
“In a state that is 30% Latino she can’t even claim to have Latino friends. Just worked with them,” Gallego said in a tweet.
Other critics lit Lesko up on social media.
“This is disgusting. Lesko needs to go,” Twitter user Stormy Haffey wrote in a tweet typical of the uproar. “The virus DOES NOT care about status. Not vaccinating people will just perpetuate the spread. And another thing-Hispanics are NOT the only immigrants in AZ.”
A Lesko spokeswoman declined to comment.
Lesko made her remarks Thursday during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as it debated COVID-19 aid.
Republicans offered an amendment to the Democratic bill that would have prioritized American citizens, a change that Democrats said would not help slow the spread of the disease because many undocumented immigrants work in jobs that carry greater risk of exposure.
The amendment failed on a partyline vote.
Lesko, in arguing for the GOP amendment, said her older constituents would not be pleased to know Democrats opposed the change.
“My Democratic colleagues are putting illegal immigrants over them,” Lesko said during the hearing. “If I read it right, all this amendment says is put Americans first. Put Americans first, and once they’re all vaccinated, then you can go to the illegal immigrants.”
After that, she made her comments pitting the health needs of “Americans” against Hispanics.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., followed Lesko and called the amendment “really, really dangerous.”
“The vaccine has no clue about where you come from, whether you have papers, whether you’re considered a citizen or legal or not,” she said. “We have people that are working as front-line health care workers and working in various industries, and when that group is qualified to get a vaccine to say now you have to prove whether or not you’re a citizen ... it makes no sense. This is dangerous.”
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., defended the amendment by saying President Joe Biden’s executive actions relaxing former President Donald Trump’s border enforcement programs has encouraged another caravan of migrants to come to the U.S. Scalise added that he doubts they are wearing masks.
“There was a crisis at our southern border and it’s coming again,” he said. “Don’t add an incentive to have even more people come here illegally and take the vaccine away from people who can’t get it.”
Lesko’s district is about 22% Hispanic, according to Census Bureau estimates, and Arizona is about 32% overall.
Precise figures for undocumented immigrants don’t exist, but the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit, estimated that Arizona has 281,000 undocumented immigrants, which would be nearly 4% of the state’s 7.3 million residents.
Her comments were first reported by the American Independent, a website that caters to progressives.