Texas governor blames Covid spread on undocumented immigrants, while criticising Biden’s ‘Neanderthal’ comment

Greg Abbott accuses federal government of ‘recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have Covid into Texas communities’

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has blamed the spread of Covid-19 on undocumented immigrants, as he criticised President Joe Biden's "Neanderthal" comment regarding him rolling back guidelines for his state amid the pandemic.

"The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have Covid into Texas communities," Mr Abbott wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.

"The Biden Admin must IMMEDIATELY end this callous act that exposes Texans & Americans to Covid," he added.

This tweet came after the Republican governor told CNBC in an interview that the Biden administration was "importing Covid into our country".

Mr Abbott did not provide specific instances of how the Biden administration was "importing" the novel virus into the country, but it comes after a Telemundo report revealed some migrants released by Border Patrol in Brownsville, Texas, then tested positive for Covid-19.

Read more: Follow live updates from the Biden administration

Since 25 January, 108 migrants who were released tested positive, which was 6.3 per cent of everyone who took a test, according to the report.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance recommends for people who test positive for the novel virus to remain in place and isolate to avoid infecting others. But a Brownsville official told Fox News that they have no power to prevent people from travelling to other cities or states after they receive a positive test.

The criticism from Mr Abbott comes after he announced Texas would no longer require for residents to wear a mask when out in public. He also rolled back business restrictions by declaring that "it is now time to open Texas 100 per cent."

Mr Biden expressed his concern that some states like Texas were rolling back coronavirus guidelines, despite new variants spreading through the country and the decline in cases stalling.

"We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we're able to get vaccines in people's arms," Mr Biden said. "The last thing – the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it. It still matters."

When speaking to CNBC, Mr Abbott defended his decision to lift the mask mandate by claiming that state residents already know "the safe standard, among other things, is to wear a mask" when responding to Covid-19.

"Do they really need the state to tell them what they already know for their own personal behavior?" he added.

He also defended the decision by stating that coronavirus infections were at "four month lows," but the average has increased in the last week. Texas recorded 7,822 new infections on 3 March, according to the Covid Tracking Project, which was a 1.9 per cent increase over the last seven days.

CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky implored state officials on Monday to not halt any current coronavirus guidelines that are in place. This was because the CDC found the decline in infections has stalled in recent weeks as new Covid-19 variants spread.

There has been a 2 per cent increase in average Covid-19 cases over a seven-day period to about 67,200 new infections per day, Dr Walensky said. Deaths have also increased in the last seven days to an average of 2,000 per day.

"Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of Covid-19 in our communities. Not when we are so close," Dr Walensky said.