Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., apologized Thursday for controversial remarks she made about immigrant labor last week while speaking to constituents at a town hall event in the city of Newport, Vt.

Vermont’s sole U.S. representative was responding to an audience question about President Donald Trump’s immigration policy when she said that without legal immigrants Americans were “not going to have anybody around to wipe our asses.”

“We all know our (agricultural) system in Vermont would collapse without migrant labor — that’s just the reality. That’s the reality of it.” Balint said at the event. “And so we know our economy is completely bound up in immigration and migrant labor.”

In an interview with VtDigger Thursday, Balint expressed regret for her language, calling it “sloppy and insensitive.”

“I want to apologize to anyone who was hurt by my comments, and I want Vermonters to understand that my position hasn’t changed,” Balint said. “It has been and always will be about protecting immigrants and fighting for dignity and fair wages for every single person in this country.”

Calling her remarks “a mistake,” Balint said she had intended to convey the central position immigrants have in the economy of Vermont and the United States more broadly.

Balint’s comments have provoked outcry in right wing circles after a video of the Newport event posted on X went viral, leading to a spate of coverage in conservative media outlets.

“What a strange, dehumanizing thing to say,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote on X while resharing the video.

In a statement released earlier this week, Vermont Republican Party Chairman Paul Dame similarly called Balint’s remarks “coarse and vulgar,” while demanding she apologize.

Balint on Thursday highlighted inflammatory rhetoric conservatives have themselves used toward immigrants in recent months as the Trump administration has ratcheted up enforcement across the country, and in Vermont specifically.

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials detained 10 migrant workers at a construction site in neighboring Newport Town, marking the largest immigration enforcement action in the state in recent memory.

The incident came on the heels of another large-scale enforcement event that occurred in March, when federal agents detained eight migrant workers at a dairy in Berkshire, Vt.

This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To support this work, please visit vtdigger.org/donate.