Conservatives’ Anti-immigration Fervor Is Political: They Think Keeping America White Will Save Them

Conservatives’ anti-immigration fervor is political: They think keeping America white will save them

On Monday, in a court­room in Wichita, a fed­er­al judge told Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach that he had so bla­tant­ly vio­lat­ed fed­er­al dis­cov­ery rules in a case he argued, defend­ing a law requir­ing vot­ers to prove their cit­i­zen­ship, that she ordered Kobach — a for­mer Department of Justice offi­cial under George W. Bush — to take reme­di­al legal cours­es. She also ruled against the law itself, say­ing there was no evi­dence it was necessary.

Kobach is best known for writ­ing the “show me your papers” law in Arizona that was also struck down in fed­er­al court. He also head­ed up the ill-fat­ed Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was dis­band­ed after many states balked at Kobach’s demand that they turn over their con­fi­den­tial vot­er rolls to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. He had very big plans:
Kobach is cur­rent­ly run­ning for gov­er­nor of Kansas, and the cru­sade to cur­tail immi­gra­tion and vot­ing rights will con­tin­ue no mat­ter how his check­ered polit­i­cal career turns out. This is now a cen­tral orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple of the Republican party.

Donald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion has the most extreme immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy in a cen­tu­ry. Among his first acts as pres­i­dent was his the­atri­cal Muslim ban. He’s beefed up the bor­der patrol and ICE and told them all to “take off the gloves.” He put one of the most anti-immi­gra­tion politi­cians in the coun­try in charge of the Justice Department, and they are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly deport­ing peo­ple, even those who have been here for 50 years. Trump backed out of a deal to legal­ize the DACA recip­i­ents at the last minute. Now they are sep­a­rat­ing chil­dren from their par­ents at the bor­der and putting them into deten­tion camps in order to “deter” Latino immi­grants, even those who are seek­ing asy­lum from the ram­pant vio­lence in their home countries.

It’s tempt­ing to chalk all this up to sim­ple Republican racism and nativism. That is cer­tain­ly what fuels the emo­tion on this issue on the right. Conservative media pounds the mes­sage that “the ille­gals” are all on wel­fare (which isn’t true) and are ruin­ing the cul­ture with taco trucks on every cor­ner. (If only.) But that isn’t the whole sto­ry Back in 2014, when the wave of unac­com­pa­nied minors from Central American came to the bor­der, Laura Ingraham led the charge against those kids: Read more @https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​1​9​/​c​o​n​s​e​r​v​a​t​i​v​es-anti-immi­gra­tion-fer­vor-is-polit­i­cal-they-think-keep­ing-amer­i­ca-white-will-save-them/