The road to the November elections is growing shorter and MAGA Republicans are confidant they have uncovered the Rosetta Stone that will guide them toward victory.
The answer is simple – brown people.
Immigration has emerged as perhaps the only sure-fire issue at the GOP’s disposal and they’re riding it like Calvin Borel along the rail at Churchill Downs. They’re making no secret of using that old, American, sure-fire suspicion of folks coming in from elsewhere to grab the power they crave.
It’s obvious in their statements and postings that Republicans think they’ve found the mother lode of truffles and their comrades in the Kentucky delegation are wasting no time sampling this delicacy
“The American people are sick and tired of Joe Biden and his disastrous, liberal policies that put illegal immigrants first and hardworking Americans last,” said Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, who apparently has appointed himself to speak for every one of the 342 million and remains hopeful that the issue has legs to carry him to the Senate in 2026.
Even Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, has suddenly displayed vital signs, adding to his recent misadventures dissing domestic energy production.
“The Biden admin has allowed our Southern border to spiral out of control,” Guthrie said via X. “(In March) more than 100 migrants rushed National Guard soldiers in El Paso. We cannot allow this chaos to continue. We must regain control of the border and build the border wall. America’s national security is at risk.”
And of course there’s always Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, who championed immigration reform.
Until he didn’t.
“The Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border created an unprecedented crisis, and the urgent humanitarian and security consequences affect every state,” McConnell said in a February floor speech. “It is time to force the president to start cleaning up his mess and equip future leaders with a system that works and new emergency tools to restore order.”
Even the Kentucky General Assembly is getting in on the act, offering a constitutional amendment prohibiting individuals who aren’t U.S. citizens from voting in state and local elections. The U.S. Constitution prohibits aliens from voting in federal races. The Kentucky Constitution of 1891 already limits voting to citizens of the U.S. who reside in the Commonwealth but the Republican-controlled legislature wants to take extraordinary measures to make sure some Spanish-speaking dude from Vera Cruz doesn’t get to decide who the mayor of Ludlow should be.
Of course all of these giants fade in the shadow of the man they want to be president once again, The Rapist, Donald J. Trump, who, it must be said, offers slightly-more-heated rhetoric on the issue of Latin American interlopers than his dewy-eyed supporters.
Trump has said on more than one occasion that those crossing the southern border without proper documentation are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
To cite the late Molly Ivins, who said in reference to a heated address by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 Republican convention, it “”probably sounded better in the original German.”
In one recent speech in Rome, GA, Trump said the ongoing surge of migrants across the southern border represents “the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country.”
It is, he insisted, an “invasion.” Now, Pancho Villa crossed the border to Columbus, NM, in 1916 and exchanged gunfire with U.S. cavalry, forcing him to retreat, only to be pursued by American forces led by Black Jack Pershing. That was an invasion. A poor dirt farmer owning only the clothes on his back, leading his wife and children? That ain’t an invasion.
And, to put a cherry on top of the sundae, The Rapist has taken to calling these migrants “animals.”
You can bet, given the opportunity, Barr, Guthrie, and McConnell will “tsk tsk” some of the naughty words Trump snarls. But they support him just the same and their goal is the same – keep the brown people out.
He speaks for them.
Immigration is a complicated issue. Some folks reading this are, perhaps understandably, chomping at the bit because I haven’t referred to “illegal” immigrants, those who sneak across the border to take up residence on this side.
That’s because the majority crossing over are actually following the nation’s asylum laws. They immediately seek out Border Patrol agents to turn themselves in, are taken to a processing center where the declare their intention to seek asylum, and are often released while their request is adjudicated – Congress hasn’t provided sufficient funds to confine them pending their application.
Following a legal process hardly makes anyone illegal.
The surge is real. Crossings ebbed during the COVID pandemic when the border was essentially closed. But a variety of reasons – poverty, gang violence, political unrest – have sent millions of people seeking better opportunities and a better life. And there is no place better for that than the United States.
For instance, about 6 million folks have fled the chaos and corruption of Venezuela seeking new opportunities to the north. They travel more than two thousand miles, often by foot, just for the chance of making it.
One hitch in determining the extent of the problem – and here the critics have a point – is the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t released an estimate of the number of unauthorized immigrants on American soil since January 2021, and that was for the year 2018, which put the number at just short of 11.4 million. The Pew Research Center estimated 10.9 million in 2021.
It’s decidedly higher now.
What we do know is, according to U.S. Border and Customs Protection, the number of so-called encounter and enforcement actions have risen shockingly. Encounters leapt from 310,531 in FY17 to 2,063,692 in FY23. Thus far, six months into FY24, the number has reached 901,549.
Total enforcement actions, combining statistics from the Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations, shows a hike from 526,901 in FY 17 to 3,201,144 in FY 2023. This fiscal year already has shown 1,487,195 border actions.
Obviously, the incredible influx needs to be addressed. How to accomplish that humanely – perhaps increasing the number of Latin American residents who can immigrant here legally or provide a pathway to citizenship for the so-called “Dreamers” – while bolstering border controls has proved elusive.
If nothing else, claims that the Biden administration is operating under an open border policy is given the lie – unless you consider almost 1.5 million border actions over the past six months an example of an open border.
During normal times, and, let’s face it, these are not normal times, Republicans would lose the moral high-ground when it comes to immigration. After years of bellyaching and poking President Biden with a stick over a surge of undocumented folks crossing the Rio Grande and through other areas, mostly to find work, the GOP has walked off the job.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, feeling the need to make himself useful, declared this year that the lower chamber would not consider aid to war-torn Ukraine – a situation close to the heart of McConnell and President Biden – without coupling the funding with increased border security.
Fine. McConnell chose Sen. James Lankford, R-OK, to come up with a plan. The result was a proposal to make the amnesty process stricter, an increase in Border Control agents, an expansion of confinement facilities, a requirement that the border be closed once the number of undocumented immigrants reached a certain stage and additional provisions.
It was a plan developed by Republicans with Democratic input and it was Republicans who said no thanks, including McConnell who wound up voting against it.
The given reason was the package wasn’t tough enough. The real reason was The Rapist wanted to ride the issue through foul rhetoric and unconvoluted racism back to the White House. Almost no one on the GOP side had the guts to tell him to take a hike.