Republicans and the Far Right, Migration and Security …

Anti-immigrant sentiment is not new. It has been part of the social culture even before the founding of the U.S. Those who arrived from outside were disparaged.

Migration and border security, migration and crime, migration and fentanyl …

For the far right, migration is to blame for all the ills facing the U.S.

It comes from the idea of “replacing” white Americans with Latinos or Asians to “reconquer,” that is, a grand Mexican plan to repopulate the territories lost in 1848.

As absurd as it may be, theories like these are part of the mythology that unites far-right conspiracy groups that have historically remained on the fringes of U.S. politics.

But today these theories roam the corridors of power. They are woven into the fabric of the Republican Party due above all to former President Donald Trump. Political gamesmanship allowed these ideas to gain considerable influence, reflected now in the House of Representatives, where committees controlled by Republicans will hold hearings to emphasize the dangers of a border “unprotected” from the potential arrival of terrorists, the entry of criminals and, of course, the trafficking of fentanyl.

That terrorists do not need to reach Mexico to enter the U.S. is obvious. The largest terrorist attack in U.S. history, which took place on 9/11, was committed by Muslim extremists who flew hijacked airplanes into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Almost all the hijackers were Saudis on student visas.

The other attacks, including the bombing of the Oklahoma federal building in 1995 and a host of school and shopping center massacres, were committed mostly by white armed Americans with a grievance against authority.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is not new. It has been part of social culture before the creation of the U.S.

Even then, immigrants were disparaged, especially if they did not come from England or Scotland.

Germans were regarded as uncouth and ill-mannered in colonial Pennsylvania, and many Scot-Irish immigrants were driven to settle on the fringes of the 13 colonies, especially in what was later the Confederate South.

There is no doubt that drugs are trafficked from Mexico to the U.S., but U.S. law enforcement agencies themselves claim that most of it enters through border ports in caches stashed in vehicles or hidden in heavy commercial traffic and not on the back of an individual without documentation, although there have been such cases.

The stupidity of these theories does not obviate how dangerous they are, as Vanessa Cardenas of America’s Voice recently pointed out, recalling that mass murderers have justified their actions using such theories since 2017. And we are going to hear these ideas by Republicans during the general election in 2024.