Washington, DC – In a new political analysis titled “Border Patrol Union President Attends Hate-Group Conference and Embraces the Same Racist Fictions as Several Domestic Terrorists,” America’s Voice Political Director Zachary Mueller reports on the details and implications of National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd’s attendance at a conference hosted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The analysis highlights the many intersections between Brandon Judd and Republicans, and Judd’s role in spreading “white replacement” and “invasion” conspiracies.
The full analysis can be found here and is excerpted below:
“Last weekend, National Border Patrol Council President, Brandon Judd spoke at a conference in Las Vegas put together by the hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Unfortunately, this is only the latest example of Judd’s concerning behavior. Over the last year Judd has repeatedly promoted the racist (and false) “replacement” and “invasion” conspiracy theories, which were cited as the inspiration for multiple white nationalist terrorists, including those in Buffalo and El Paso. Judd has also participated in political ads this cycle that normalize political violence. Developments that are concerning in their own right, but Judd’s actions take on additional significance because of who he represents and his increasing prominence in the Republican party.
A Border Patrol officer himself, Judd has led the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) since 2013, and has turned the organization into a powerful political surrogate for the GOP’s nativist border narrative. And like the Republican Party, Judd has become increasingly radicalized.
Judd is no stranger to FAIR and has participated with the hate group before, which was founded by the late John Tanton, a eugenicist and white nationalist who published, sold, and distributed an English edition of the racist French “great replacement” novel “Camp of the Saints.” Tanton, FAIR, and the other nativist organizations in this network were also central to the promotion of the rhetoric around the migrant “invasion” conspiracy, which is a lie echoed by the domestic terrorists who have murdered Americans in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo. Despite this public track record, Judd signed onto a letter written in January of this year by Senator Rick Scott and Rep. Elise Stefanik alongside Dan Stein, the President of the FAIR pushing the GOP’s disingenuous border narrative. And in 2017, Judd and the other leadership of NBPC attended FAIR’s annual conference. Judd’s continued collaboration with a designated hate group reflects poorly on NBPC, the politicians they campaign for and the Border Patrol officers they represent.
Judd has repeatedly used media appearances and interviews to amplify “replacement” and “invasion” conspiracy theories. Once relegated to the fridges where they belong, these white nationalists lies hold that “Jews” or “the Left/elites/Democrats” are coordinating an invasion of non-white migrants to replace white voters to subvert the democratic will of the “real Americans.”
Judd and the NBPC have also increasingly become partisan political actors with Judd appearing in dozens of Republican primary ads already in this midterm cycle. Remember, Judd led the NBPC to make its first ever presidential endorsement in the primaries in 2016 for Donald Trump whose aggressive nativism was a cornerstone of his campaign. Now Judd has asserted the NBPC as key players in Republican primaries up and down the ticket and across the country. Many of the candidates the NBPC have endorsed this cycle have made nativism a central part of their political campaigns and have echoed the “replacement” and “invasion” conspiracies, most notably in Arizona.
The question should be asked of all the candidates that have received Judd’s endorsement or featured him in one of their ads; do they too subscribe to the white nationalist “replacement” and “invasion” conspiracy theories? Do they agree we should treat migrants seeking a legal claim to asylum with militaristic hostility? Or do they reject white nationalism in all its forms and reject the dangerous rhetoric that puts a target on all immigrant communities?
These questions are especially relevant for the House battleground Republicans like De La Cruz, Garcia, and Vega. The voters in these districts deserve to know where these candidates stand. If these candidates don’t loudly reject the support of Brandon Judd they are complicit in the white nationalist myths he pedals and the deadly downstream consequences of the lies he tells.”
