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COVID-19: Border town mayor has had enough of Republican governors blaming the Delta surge on asylum seekers

As COVID deaths across the United States continue to surge this summer, doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention point to the low vaccination rates in many Southern states as the main cause. However, some prominent Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, have claimed that asylum seekers on the U.S.-Mexico border share some of the blame. Gerardo Sanchez, mayor of San Luis, Ariz., one of the busiest stretches along the border, tells Yahoo News he’s heard enough.

Video transcript

CARMEN VALENCIA: COVID deaths across the United States continue to see a summer surge.

HOWARD DASHEFSKY: We begin again with COVID and the big surge of infections.

- Over the last month COVID deaths have almost tripled nationwide.

CARMEN VALENCIA: Doctors from the CDC point to the low vaccination rates in many southern states as the main cause.

ROCHELLE WALENSKY: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage, because unvaccinated people are at risk.

CARMEN VALENCIA: But to listen to the governors and many of those southern states, there is another culprit at hand.

DOUG DUCEY: I think the Biden administration is weak and pathetic on the border.

RON DESANTIS: He's imported more virus from around the world by having a wide-open Southern border.

GREG ABBOTT: I have a job to protect the safety and health of the people of state of Texas. And that includes, especially now, preventing President Biden from importing COVID-19 into Texas, as well as into to the United States.

CARMEN VALENCIA: I spoke with Gerardo Sanchez, a physician's assistant in San Luis, Arizona, the second largest port of entry from Mexico into the United States, who happens to also be the mayor.

GERARDO SANCHEZ: The COVID patients that I'm seeing are those people who the vast majority are not vaccinated. I am seeing some vaccinated patients. But the thing is, for someone to say that the reason we're having a spike is because of the undocumented or the asylum-seekers crossing our borders, I don't agree with it.

Yes, there are some positive COVID patients who are crossing the border, but you don't have to be undocumented. You don't have to be an asylum-seeker to be positive for COVID. It's very difficult to hear some politicians start blaming and pointing fingers while not even half of our population is vaccinated or wish not to be vaccinated. And so, no, I just caution that. It's really easy to blame someone else for your irresponsibility or your lack of responsibility.

CARMEN VALENCIA: Mayor Sanchez says the best way to fight COVID-19 is exactly what experts have been telling Americans since the start, to mask up and roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated. And his message to Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona is to stop pointing the blame on others for the COVID crisis and let the medical professionals like himself do what they do best to protect their communities.