LePage wrongly blames ‘illegals’ for diseases in Maine

Blaming immigrants for local woes — they’re taking your jobs, they’re a drain on public assistance programs and making your taxes go up — has long been a staple of Republican campaigns. The new strategy is to blame illegal immigrants for disease outbreaks in America, when there is no evidence to support this.

In spontaneous remarks during his State of the State address last week, Gov. Paul LePage tied these immigrants to a costly uptick in hepatitis C, HIV and tuberculosis.

“But this is the problem with some of the illegals that are here today,” the governor said. “When a refugee comes here from a foreign country, they get a medical assessment and we know their health. But when they are here illegally, they don’t get medical assessments.

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