House GOP Campaign Arm Deletes Tweet Calling Democrat an ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The NRCC told NOTUS the group wanted to move on and not “let Democrats distract from their disastrous Joint Address antics.”

Adriano Espaillat

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP

After a number of Republicans and Democrats called out the National Republican Congressional Committee for a tweet in which the group called Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat an “illegal immigrant,” the NRCC quietly deleted the post on Friday.

The tweet, claiming that Democrats “literally chose an illegal immigrant to give their response to President Trump’s address,” was widely panned for its inaccuracy and tone. (Espaillat, the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, delivered a rebuttal to Donald Trump’s speech in Spanish and has been a legal citizen for 60 years.)

When Espaillat was a child, his family overstayed a tourist visa before getting green cards in 1965.