Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said Tuesday that only legally documented immigrants will be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination program in meat-packing plants—which have been hard hit by the virus. “To get the vaccination you gotta be here legally,” he said at a press conference, claiming that the factories don’t hire undocumented workers. The union representing plant workers said that was nonsense. “There is absolutely undocumented workers working in all of the plants,” labor leader Eric Reeder told WOWT. And medical experts said not vaccinating everyone in the factories made no sense from an epidemiological or economic point of view. “These industries have been designated as crucial and essential, so it would seem like we want to protect the people in those industries,” Dr. Mark Rupp of Nebraska Medicine told the station. More than 40,000 plant workers nationwide contracted the virus and more than 200 died.
