The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott in the US, has been slammed on Twitter after he issued false claims that South Africans carrying the Omicron variant have been apprehended while crossing into the US illegally.
Abbott, a Republican who ran for office on an anti-immigration ticket, blamed US President Joe Biden for “doing nothing” from stopping immigrants from South Africa crossing into the US illegally.
While many people pointed out that the two country’s are separated by an ocean and are 12 000 km apart, Abbott refused to delete his Tweet.
Many Twitter users mused that Abbott may be confusing the US southern border with Mexico to South Africa.
Abbott’s Tweet comes amid anger from South Africa and the African continent over the fact many developed nations including the US, the UK and EU member countries moved quickly to shut their border to southern Africa countries after South African scientists discovered a new variant of the Covid-19 virus that has since been named Omicron.
Many feel that South Africa is being unfairly punished for its transparency and advanced capacity for detecting viruses.
The discovery of the new variant has added fuel to the fire of right-wing conspiracy theorists like Abbott.
On Sunday night. President Cyril Ramaphosa slammed the prohibition of travel into South Africa from some countries saying: “These restrictions are unjustified and unfairly discriminate against our country and our Southern African sister countries, the prohibition of travel will not be effective in preventing the spread of this variant“.
Biden banned travel from South Africa because of the new Covid variant.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) November 28, 2021
Immigrants have recently been apprehended crossing our border illegally from South Africa.
Biden is doing nothing to stop immigrants from South Africa entering illegally.
Pure politics and hypocrisy.
Sources: IOL, Times LIVE
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