Top House Homeland Security Democrat Decries GOP's Xenophobic Rhetoric

The House Homeland Security Committee’s ranking member has suggested that Republicans are spreading xenophobic rhetoric under the guise of concerns about the U.S. border — stressing that their amplification of racist lies has increased threats to marginalized communities while the GOP hampers real solutions for improved border security.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) made the comments in his opening statement at a Wednesday committee hearing about these very issues, noting that the Republican White House campaign has doubled down on a widely debunked conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.

“Anti-immigrant rhetoric and racist tropes should have no place in our public discourse. They are un-American,” Thompson said. “And too often, they have helped fuel real-world violence against immigrants and minority communities across the country.”

Thompson cited the cases of a gunman who targeted a Hispanic community by “shooting and killing 23 innocent people” in an attack on a Walmart in the border town of El Paso, Texas; a gunman who targeted a Black community by killing 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York; and a gunman who targeted a Jewish community by killing almost a dozen worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Springfield has “received at least 33 bomb threats against schools, hospitals and city facilities” in recent days due to the continued spread of racist lies, Thompson said. City and state officials have repeatedly rebutted the lies, warning Donald Trump’s presidential campaign that such rhetoric is hurting the local community.

“There’s been no evidence at all of anyone eating a dog or any Haitians doing any of that,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) told CNN of the migrants. “These Haitians that are there are legal. They work very, very hard.”

DeWine this week deployed state troopers to bolster security at Springfield schools. He has also pledged $2.5 million to provide the city with more resources to better accommodate its population increase.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate who currently represents Ohio in Congress, has suggested that their comments stem from concerns over border security. Trump has previously floated using the military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants by “following the Eisenhower model” — a 1950s mass deportation initiative, named after a slur used for Mexican immigrants, that rounded up migrants and, in some cases, brown-skinned U.S. citizens under the guise of border security.

Thompson said Wednesday that Republicans don’t actually want to solve the issue of border security, bringing up how GOP lawmakers — including Vance — blocked the Senate’s bipartisan border deal while “refusing to move necessary border security funding.”

“Instead of partisan fearmongering and dystopian deportation plans, we need real solutions about how we can strengthen border security, fix our immigration system and grow our economy while upholding our American values,” Thompson said.