Republicans have used obstruction and lies to move the Overton Window rightward on immigration

It's been clear for a while now that, when it comes to the 2024 election, Republicans are determined to make immigration the one and only issue on the table. In doing so, many of their leaders are openly embracing the white nationalist's Great Replacement theory. Trump didn't just say that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country, he also posted this:

Over the last few days, right wing billionaire Elon Musk has gone all-in on the Great Replacement theory.

Biden’s strategy is very simple:

1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible.

2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority – a one-party state.

That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration. Simple, yet effective. pic.twitter.com/B9M5ypUOQB

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2024

Last May, Speaker Mike Johnson said this about the so-called border crisis: "The Biden administration has done this intentionally...For what reason? Everybody asks me all the time. I think that ultimately they hope to turn all these illegals into voters for their side."

The truth is that, spewing white nationalist conspiracy theories about immigrants has become an everyday occurrence for Republicans.

As Josh Marshall pointed out, a decade ago those are the kinds of things you'd have to go to a site like Stormfront to see. Now they're part of everyday political discourse on the right. It's worth taking a moment to think about how we got here.

In 2012, Latinos voted for President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 71% to 27%. In response, the RNC performed an autopsy. Included in their report were statements like this:

We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, must be to embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only...

By the year 2050 we’ll be a majority-minority country and in both 2008 and 2012 President Obama won a combined 80 percent of the votes of all minority groups...The RNC cannot and will not write off any demographic or community or region of this country.

That report was issued in mid-March 2013. By April, a bi-partisan group of Senators introduced comprehensive immigration reform that included a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, along with unprecedented resources for border security. By the end of June, it had passed the Senate by a vote of 68-32. But then-Speaker John Boehner, surrendering to his lunatic caucus, refused to vote on it in the House. They wanted border enforcement, but no pathway to citizenship.

Two years after the Senate passed bipartisan immigration reform, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president by claiming that immigrants are criminals and rapists. That launched a continuous series of lies, followed by horrific policies (ie, Muslim ban, family separation) once he was elected. The white nationalists in his administration even refused to support the DREAM Act for young people who came here as children.

What concerns me about this trajectory is that all of the obstruction and lies seem to have worked. Ten years ago the bipartisan bargain was to trade border security for a pathway to citizenship. But the current bipartisan Senate agreement doesn't even consider a pathway.

It gets even worse. Great Replacement theorists like Trump, Johnson, and Musk are now suggesting that offering a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is part of the Democratic plot to destroy (white) America. 

It is impossible to ignore the fact that Republicans have been successful in using obstruction and lies to move the Overton Window to the right when it comes to immigration.