The office of Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts was forced to clarify remarks made by the Republican on Monday stating that undocumented workers at the state’s meatpacking plants wouldn’t be eligible for COVID-19 vaccine distribution at facilities because I guess he thinks they don’t exist there or something. “You’re supposed to be a legal resident of the country to be able to be working in those plants,” The Washington Post reports he said, “so I do not expect that illegal immigrants will be part of the vaccine with that program.”
First of all, no human being is illegal. Secondly, undocumented immigrants do exist and work at these facilities, where in fact most of the laborers are immigrants. Facing public outrage and confusion, the governor’s office had to explain, if you can call it that. “Immigrants would still qualify for the vaccine, one Ricketts aide said, but those without legal status would have to wait at the back of the line,” the report said. But this isn’t just cruel, it makes no public health sense.
Unlike Republicans, COVID-19 does not ask for papers, and this virus has been decimating workers, including those lacking legal status, in these facilities from the start. Prism’s Tina Vasquez reported last year that from the earliest weeks of the pandemic, these plants became COVID-19 hotspots, with hundreds upon hundreds of cases linked to individual facilities all across the nation. By September, over 42,000 meatpacking workers had tested positive for the virus. More than 200 were dead.
“James Goddard, the senior programs director at the nonprofit Nebraska Appleseed, said in an interview with The Post that it was ‘alarming’ Ricketts could make undocumented immigrants wait longer for a vaccine,” the report said. Goddard called the Ricketts plan “terrible public-health policy.” Even the Trump administration’s own surgeon general, Jerome Adams, has addressed the need to ensure everyone regardless of immigration status is able to receive the vaccine.
“Everyone should have equitable access to the vaccine as expeditiously as possible,” Goddard said according to The Post, “but we need to prioritize folks based on public health criteria, not on where someone is from.” In states like California, advocates have urged that as essential workers, farm laborers, many of whom are undocumented, be prioritized for the vaccine alongside healthcare workers.
One study conducted by the California Institute for Rural Studies last year “found that in Monterey County, farmworkers are three times more likely to contract the coronavirus than the general population,” nonprofit environmental journalism organization InsideClimate News said. “Farm hubs have the highest rates of Covid-19 in the state, and Latinx patients comprise the majority of cases in those hot spots.” Nationally, more than five million undocumented immigrants are essential workers, according to one study.
So if Ricketts’ office tried to walk back the outrage by saying that undocumented workers will get the vaccine but just last, does this mean that officials in the state are really going to force families to show their immigration status in order to carry out that process? Still facing public outcry on Wednesday, KMTV 3 News Now reporter Jennifer Griswold tweeted that Ricketts said “they won't be checking status when giving vaccinations at meat packing plants because that already should've been checked for employment.”
Or we can just throw out this ridiculous discussion and give everyone regardless of immigration status the fucking shot, no questions asked, while prioritizing essential workers. Our nation sure is glad to use their labor, until it’s time to take care of them. “This virus isn’t discriminating based on immigration status,” Dulce Castañeda told The Post. She’s a leader with Children of Smithfield, an advocacy group made up of family members of meatpacking plant workers in Nebraska. “It doesn’t ask people if they’re a citizen, if they’re a resident, if they’re on a visa. So why would we ask that for vaccines?”
