Republican Lies About Immigration

Click here for an article at MSNBC by Julio Ricardo Varela entitled "This new report reveals the depths of the GOP's lies about immigration."

A report from the Pew Research Center says that the estimated total of unauthorized peaked in 2007, under W., at 12.2 million and has been declining ever since, until 2021, the last year for which figures are available, to 10.5 million. The decline has continued, says Pew, "since apprehensions and expulsions of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border started increasing in March 2021.”

If those numbers shock you, then there’s a reason for it. Not a week goes by without somebody in the Republican Party promising mass deportations of unauthorized migrants. They can’t talk about the U.S. border with Mexico without falsely describing it as “open.”

Once proudly described as a nation of immigrants, the United States has become a nation of immigration enforcers thanks to Republicans making immigration a wedge issue that too many Democrats are afraid to challenge.

Republicans say that they don’t mind immigrants entering the country legally; they want to decrease the number coming in illegally. Well, that’s exactly what’s been happening.

Another interesting statistic is that while unauthorized immigration has decreased by 14%, legal immigration has increased by 29%. The number of naturalized citizens has grown by 49%. 

And the majority of unauthorized immigrants arrive not over the southern border, despite Republican fearmongering, but by people who arrive legally as tourists and overstay their visa.

The differences in perception between the two parties are stark: " 73% of Republicans believe that “American culture and way of life” has “mostly changed for the worse” since the 1950s. Only 34% of Democrats feel the same way. This is the same survey that found a third of Republicans “believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.” Such views align with a 2021 Pew poll showing clear partisan lines between conservative Republicans (38%) who see the decrease in a white majority to be bad for the country and liberal Democrats (32%) who see it as a good thing.

But Republican fearmongering has not convinced the majority of Americans that immigration is a bad thing:

When asked about levels of immigration, 57% either want it to remain at or above its present levels, while 41% favor a decrease in our immigration levels. Constant news of a so-called “invasion” coming almost exclusively from Republican politicians and their right-wing allies may contribute to the views of that 41%.

The article closes:

The roughly 10.5 million undocumented people in the United States are not faceless, and there is enough political support out there to make sure they are seen as the human beings they are. Republicans might be excoriating them, which is dangerous and terrifying, especially for immigrant communities, but those same immigrants help form the fabric of American society. Distorting statistical reality for GOP political expediency is now the standard. But Thursday’s Pew report gives Democrats the opportunity to radically change the conversation.

Perhaps Trump's recent grandiose announcements of creating huge concentration camps and deportations of millions a year will be more difficult than Stephen Miller expects.