“I mean, right now look at all these people with COVID who are coming across the border, and it scares me. They’re put on buses, I suspect some of them are coming up to New Jersey — not a good idea. But the people pulled over from the border are carrying illegal guns or drugs, or whatever.”

Former New Jersey state Sen. Diane Allen, a candidate for N.J. lieutenant governor, uttered these toxic words in an attempt to blame the surge of coronavirus cases on immigrants crossing the southern border.

Allen’s comments are patently false, immigrants crossing the border are carrying infant formula, bottles of water, important documents, and not illegal guns or drugs. They wouldn’t risk asylum by carrying any contraband.

It’s unvaccinated white evangelicals in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and Missouri who are responsible for the surge in coronavirus cases, not brown immigrants who would gladly get vaccinated if the vaccine were as readily available in their countries as it is in the United States.

Blaming immigrants for spreading diseases is one of the oldest tropes in the racist playbook. These bigots, many of whom are evangelicals, ignore the words of Jehovah in the Old Testament:

“When the alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt:  I am the Lord your God.”

Undocumented persons entering the United States are tested for COVID, and it’s unfair and racist to blame them for the surge in coronavirus cases.

Let’s put the blame squarely on the shoulders of those responsible for the huge spike: Republican politicians who downplay the need for masking up and getting vaccinated, and white evangelicals who make a mockery of their faith by selfishly refusing to get vaccinated.