Washington, DC — In a new opinion essay in TIME, former Anti-Defamation League (ADL) leader Abraham Foxman highlights the dangerous conspiracies central to House Republicans’ drive to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
In “The Conspiracy Theories Behind the Drive to Impeach Mayorkas,” Foxman writes:
“The immigration debate has historically been laced with racist and antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories. These poisonous ideas are center stage in the drive to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Impeachment proponents in Congress accuse Mayorkas of deliberately inviting an immigrant invasion. This draws directly from the “Great Replacement” theory, which explains demographic change as a plot against white people, often instigated by Jews to undermine white dominance and usurp power.
…It’s one thing to wage an aggressive political fight. But deploying a hateful conspiracy theory against a man who is, not just the first Latino or refugee to hold the office, but one whose family story is intertwined with the Jewish flight from persecution and with our country’s heritage as a nation of immigrants. His mother and her parents fled from Romania to France, and then to Cuba. When he was just one, Mayorkas and his parents fled Cuba for the U.S. after the Castro revolution.
All this against the backdrop of a presumptive nominee for president repeatedly accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” – the same trope used to rally Germans against Jews in order to “protect their own blood.”
…You don’t have to be a Holocaust survivor like me to be concerned. Before he opened fire killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, shouting “All Jews must die” the shooter had just posted: “HIAS (a Jewish refugee resettlement organization) likes to bring invaders that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” The murderer who shot at a synagogue in Poway, CA claimed that Jews were responsible for the genocide of “white Europeans.” Mayorkas has publicly warned against the growth of conspiracy and hate fueled extremist violence.
At heart, I’ve lived as an optimist with faith in the resilience of democracy and in the conscience of good people. But today, I am worried. When an antisemitic, anti-immigrant conspiracy is evoked to take down a Jewish public servant, who served on the board of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the same organization that helped bring my own family to the U.S. after the Holocaust, the same organization evoked by the perpetrator of the largest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, my antennae go up … It’s time to stop this dangerous charade.”
Additional Resources (among many other Editorials, Op-Eds and Statements)
- Advocacy organizations’ press release, “Dangerous Bigoted Conspiracy Theories Should Not Dictate Impeachment Proceedings”
- Lawyers Defending American Democracy letter signed by more than 4,500 lawyers questioning the “unconstitutional efforts to impeach” DHS Secretary Mayorkas
- Letter from 79 progressive organizations opposed to the impeachment effort.
- Letter from 17 Jewish organizations, lead by HIAS and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs “condemning antisemitic, white supremacist, and anti-immigrant conspiracy theories” at play in Mayorkas impeachment.
- Letter from prominent Cuban-American leaders who are “dismayed at what we see happening in the halls of Congress.”
- Letter from nearly 20 prominent Latino organizations, saying that “policy differences do not warrant unfair and politically driven efforts to remove one of the highest-ranking Latinos in government.”
- America’s Voice press release with audio link to press call: “Reps. Castro, Raskin, Escobar and Casar Join Extremism Experts to Discuss Right-Wing Border Vigilantism Threats”
