Democrats on Thursday rallied behind U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat after a Republican group branded the trailblazing New York lawmaker as an “illegal immigrant.”

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries led a chorus of Democratic outrage over the jab aimed at Espaillat, a naturalized U.S. citizen who is the first member of Congress born in the Dominican Republic and the only one ever to be an undocumented immigrant.

“These people are disgusting,” Jeffries tweeted.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., added: “The intern @NRCC that tweeted this racist s--t needs to be fired” in his own tweet.

The National Republican Congressional Campaign lobbed the “illegal” insult at Espaillat after he was chosen to give the Spanish-language response to President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.

“Democrats literally chose an illegal immigrant to give their response to President Trump’s address,” the NRCC wrote on its official Twitter feed. “Democrats couldn’t be more disconnected from the American people.”

Espaillat, 70, was a child when he and his family overstayed a tourist visa decades ago. But they received permanent residency within a year.

Espaillat, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is a five-term lawmaker who won his deep-blue central Harlem seat after longtime Rep. Charles Rangel retired in 2016. He proudly labels himself a “former undocumented immigrant turned progressive congressman.”

A spokesperson for the NRCC defended its statement about Espaillat as “facts” and said Democrats should focus their outrage on crime and border security.

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