Washington, DC – Today, Members of the House will take their first vote on Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as House Speaker. Below are key background details and examples of Jim Jordan’s immigration extremism and mainstreaming of dangerous and antisemitic “great replacement” and “invasion” conspiracy theories.
- Jim Jordan is one of the leading anti-immigrant voices in Congress as well as a major purveyor of the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory with its roots in antisemitism.
- At a House Judiciary Committee hearing in February titled “Biden’s Border Crisis,” Jordan stated, “I think it’s intentional. … It seems deliberate, it seems premeditated, it seems intentional…make no mistake about it, the Biden administration is carrying out its plan.” That, of course, is an implicit reference to the replacement conspiracy.
- The House Judiciary Committee, with Rep. Jordan as Chair, also produced a video of Jordan pushing that message, falsely asserting without evidence that what’s happening on the border is “Intentional. It’s by design.” Jordan also tweeted a similar message in July of 2022, “The border crisis is intentional.”
- Additionally, Jordan has used the same invasion rhetoric cited by mass murderers in Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo, including as a fundraising ploy in his 2022 campaign, with an email solicitation calling to “end the invasion.”
- As Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) said in a statement this morning: “Republicans are now planning to elect a Speaker who has used his official role as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to spread antisemitic tropes and replacement theory online and on national TV.”
- Jim Jordan is trying to push extremist and unworkable immigration and border policy as a precondition of keeping the government open. In addition to his dangerous and conspiratorial “replacement” and “invasion” messaging, Rep. Jordan also has a collection of immigration policy views that are cruel and extreme even by the standards of the 2023 Republican Party.
- Rep. Jordan recently proposed what he called a “non-negotiable” demand in order to fund the government: “No money can be used to process or release into the country any new migrants” (as well as asylum seekers). That is an extreme, likely unconstitutional, and unattainable position that would have deadly consequences and explosive budget implications.
- As Greg Sargent of the Washington Post highlighted, Rep. Jordan is “threatening to derail the next round of talks about keeping the government open — unless Democrats agree to restrictions on asylum-seeking that are not just wildly extreme, but would be entirely unworkable even if Democrats were inclined to accept them.”
- Jim Jordan embodies the continued descent of the Republican Party: As longtime Washington observer Norm Ornstein assessed, “If Jim Jordan, a leader in the violent insurrection, a protector of a monstrous sexual predator, a shallow legislative terrorist, becomes Speaker, it is the final step in a party becoming a clear and present danger to every facet of American democracy.”
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Whether his bid for the speakership ends successfully or not, the very notion of Jim Jordan moving into the presidential line of succession should be a frightening prospect for anyone who cares about our democracy. Jim Jordan sought to overturn the 2020 election, has repeatedly embraced the white nationalist and antisemitic “great replacement” theory, and the accompanying “invasion” rhetoric that together have inspired multiple domestic terrorist attacks; and his fealty to Donald Trump includes a shared commitment to immigration extremism and policy proposals that are both cruel and unworkable.
Jim Jordan’s embrace of extreme white nationalist and antisemitic tropes and conspiracies are not befitting of any Member of Congress, let alone the Speaker of the House. The American people deserve a functioning government, not more of the dangerous nativist politics, embrace of white nationalist conspiracies and anti-democratic extremism that Jim Jordan embodies.”
