Florida governor Ron DeSantis sent a letter to President Biden Tuesday demanding Biden allow Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic to play in a major upcoming tournament in Florida despite his being unvaccinated.
“The only thing keeping Mr. Djokovic from participating in this tournament is your administration’s continued enforcement of a misguided, unscientific, and out-of-date COVID-19 requirement for foreign guests seeking to visit our great country,” the governor wrote in the letter slamming the Biden administration.
DeSantis cited the hypocrisy in Biden’s publicly admitting in September 2022 that the “pandemic is over” while still barring Djokovic from entering the U.S. to compete in the Miami Open, scheduled for March 20. Djokovic deserves an exemption from the arbitrary, now pointless rule, DeSantis said.
Natural immunity is now as effective as the vaccine in protecting against the virus, according to the medical journal the Lancet, DeSantis added, making the rule even more absurd.
“The time has come to give up the fiction that COVID vaccines remain a necessary tool to promote public health,” he said.
DeSantis also called out Biden for presiding over an unprecedented crisis at the border, in which migrants have poured into the interior at an alarming rate but haven’t had to prove vaccination status. “Furthermore, even as you enacted the Proclamation on air travel that remains in force to this day, your administration pointedly allowed thousands of unvaccinated migrants to enter our country through the southern border,” DeSantis wrote.
Last January, Djokovic was blocked from participating in the Australian open after its border force denied his visa over an inadmissible vaccine medical exemption for foreign travelers. Djokovic was detained at a housing facility for refugees and asylum seekers while his case was being adjudicated. After a legal battle, which he lost, Djokovic was deported. Djokovic, who is the world’s top-ranked male tennis player, missed the Australian open and the chance to both defend his title as well as make a bid for a 21st singles major title.