Nebraska Republican governor throws undocumented essential workers to the back of the vaccine line

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?”