Washington, DC – Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s Thursday border codel will continue Republicans’ relentless focus on anti-immigrant lies, politics, and disinformation. Below, we highlight three key points to keep in mind:
- Point 1: Having failed to deliver on legislation or reach consensus within the House Republican conference, McCarthy returns to his old border photo op strategy and preference for political theater instead of solutions
- Point 2: Republicans’ political disinformation that the border is “open” is a gift to smugglers and cartels
- Point 3: Republicans are amplifying/mainstreaming dangerous white nationalist conspiracies
According to Douglas Rivlin, America’s Voice Director of Communication: “Kevin McCarthy is hoping if he yells ‘Biden’s open borders’ loud enough, more migrants might hear and he can keep blaming Democrats. The reality is, McCarthy and his fellow Republicans don’t want to wrestle with real solutions on immigration and the border and can’t even coalesce around GOP-only legislation. It’s all political theater and dangerous rhetoric that advances lies, mainstreams white nationalist conspiracies and moves us farther from real solutions we need.”
Point 1: Having failed to deliver on legislation or reach consensus within the House Republican conference, McCarthy returns to his old border photo op strategy and preference for political theater instead of solutions.
- Border and asylum bills were supposed to be first order of business for House Republicans, but their main bill thus far is Rep. Chip Roy’s extremist legislation that would effectively ban asylum. As Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) assessed: “Trying to ban legitimate asylum claims — one, it’s not Christian, and two, to me, it’s very anti-American.” Due to opposition from Rep. Gonzales and several other Republicans, GOP leadership scuttled plans to fast track a floor vote as they had promised.
- The Republican schism over actual immigration policy hasn’t slowed their relentless political focus on anti-immigrant themes and the border – as McCarthy’s border codel photo op shows along with, three different GOP committees’ hearings (thus far), and the relentless barrage of GOP talking points and social media focus.
- Whenever they talk about the border, which is all the time, Republicans repeat their pernicious and false talking points regarding fentanyl – blaming immigrants and asylum seekers for the very real scourge of the opioid crisis. Yet the facts about fentanyl are stubborn and undermine the GOP narrative. See AV’s resource guide on fentanyl here for background and examples.
- Spikes in migration and the number of people seeking asylum have happened under Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden – in 2014, 2016, 2019, 2020 and over the past two years, underscoring the reality that forced migration is a global issue with changing patterns. Affixing blame to Democrats and demonizing Black and Brown people at the border is a much higher priority for Republicans than legislating realistic policies to address what is actually happening.
Point 2: Republicans’ political disinformation that the border is “open” is a gift to smugglers and cartels
- While neither the Biden administration nor Democrats are presiding over or pushing for “open borders,” the ceaseless GOP talking point may be contributing to disinformation among migrants. As the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank noted of last week’s House Oversight committee hearing:
“Republican after Republican claimed the Biden administration has conspired to endanger Americans with an ‘open border’ policy” … [Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)] “repeatedly demanded to know ‘what changed’ since the Trump administration ended to cause such a flood of migration. He was clearly fishing for the officials to blame Biden. But John Modlin, chief of the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, testified that the real cause was disinformation. Apprehended migrants, he said, primarily tell border agents that they heard the border ‘was open.’ Now where would migrants get the false impression that the United States has an open border? Hmm.”
- Remember that Republican and right wing media’s relentless effort to brand Democrats as pushing for “open borders” and to blame Biden for rising numbers of arrivals at the border started during the Trump presidency – see Tom Homan on Fox News in August 2020 blaming Biden for a 40% increase in border apprehensions occurring under Trump – a full five months before Biden took office – then, in December 2020, anti-immigrant talking heads Mark Krikorian and Ken Cuccinelli each used the “Biden effect” before even the new President’s inauguration. It’s all political disinformation and blame.
Point 3: Republicans are amplifying/mainstreaming dangerous white nationalist conspiracies.
- As America’s Voice has been highlighting, the GOP’s relentless anti-immigrant focus has mainstreamed dangerous “invasion” and “replacement” conspiracies and messengers – from “replacement theory” espouser Brandon Judd as a key witness at the field hearing today in Texas to the specific language of House GOP members such as Rep. Paul Gosar and House Judiciary and Oversight committee colleagues.
- This “invasion” and “replacement” conspiracy has been cited by multiple domestic terrorists who have killed dozens in places including Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, El Paso and Buffalo, where the white supremacist who murdered 10 people last year and cited similar rhetoric, today received a life without parole sentence.
- Kevin McCarthy and fellow Republicans leaders are complicit in this platforming – recall that in 2019, then-Republican Minority Leader McCarthy removed former Rep. Steve King (R-IA) from House committee assignments because of King’s use of white nationalist language. As the New York Times reported, Rep. McCarthy said of King’s comments: “This is not the first time we’ve heard these comments … That is not the party of Lincoln and it’s definitely not American.” What’s changed since then, Mr. Speaker?
