Right-wing media have repeatedly used fears of a supposed immigrant “invasion” to raise money

Right-wing media is using anti-immigrant rhetoric about an invasion

Citation Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Right-wing media outlets and personalities have been sending fundraising emails using the white nationalist trope that undocumented immigrants are invading the United States through its southern border. The emails have also said that “the Left has launched an all out war on America’s sovereignty,” claimed that undocumented immigration is “quintessentially barbarian,” and praised President Donald Trump for being the “only one standing up to do anything about it.” 

The claim that undocumented immigrants are invading the United States has been a white nationalist trope for years. Its toxic use has escalated under Trump’s presidency and was recently echoed in the rhetoric of the alleged mass shooter who killed at least 22 people on August 3 in El Paso, TX. 

Media Matters documented that Facebook allowed Trump’s reelection campaign to run over 2,000 ads that referred to immigration as an “invasion” between January and February of this year. Nine other Republican politicians have also run Facebook ads using the invasion rhetoric in the last year. Fox News personalities also frequently fearmonger about an immigrant “invasion” and push the white supremacist “great replacement” theory. 

Right-wing media outlets and personalities have also referred to immigration as an “invasion” in fundraising emails, according to a Media Matters search. Here are numerous examples from the past year. 

Right-wing commentator David Horowitz of the David Horowitz Freedom Center wrote in a June 8 email: “From sanctuary cities to our border wall, the Left has launched an all out war on America’s sovereignty. And the President is using every tool at his disposal to stop their invasion agenda. Enough is enough.” 

WorldNetDaily used an excerpt of a piece from a WND magazine in its June 6 email to ask for monetary support: “What is more quintessentially barbarian than a massive invasion of a society by people who don’t share its values, respect its Constitution, speak its language or honor its history?” From the email: 

Immigration and border control: What is more quintessentially barbarian than a massive invasion of a society by people who don’t share its values, respect its Constitution, speak its language or honor its history? In its craven pursuit of votes and power, since the Obama presidency the Democratic Party has encouraged, facilitated and literally invited a massive, rolling invasion of America across her southern border, creating havoc in every area imaginable – from massive crime to wage suppression for unskilled labor, to dilution of America’s culture to a gargantuan drain on taxpayers. Indeed, the fact that today’s Democrats say they want both open borders and a massive welfare state open to all is widely recognized as a formula for the total and rapid financial ruin of America.

The Islam problem

There is one more form of barbarian invasion being both promoted and excused by the left, thanks to what author David Horowitz calls the “unholy alliance” between radical Islam and the American left, since both share a common enemy – namely Christianity. Islam, by its very nature, and as history proves again and again, tends not to assimilate but to conquer. It’s politically incorrect in the extreme to say so, but “barbarian invasion” is what Islam has specialized in for most of the last 14 centuries. A look across the pond to Europe, which has been transformed, probably permanently, by the massive legal and illegal Islamic immigration into that formerly Christian continent, is a harbinger of what America has in store if it continues down its current immigration path.

… 

Result of barbarian invasions

In the end, what do societies look like historically after they’ve been invaded and ultimately conquered by people who don’t honor their culture, their values and their God?

That’s a simple question to answer. Their past is obliterated; ever larger segments of the population have no shared memory of their nation’s history. Their former culture and value system is replaced by an angry babble of competing languages, beliefs and moral standards. Their key institutions are invaded, subverted and transformed, if not outright destroyed. Little respect remains for the transcendent value of human life because reverence for God has all but vanished. All that was previously cherished is gone – or gone underground, to live in fear.

Is that not precisely what the left has been doing to America?

Right-wing radio host Ed Martin wrote on April 9 to supporters of his group Phyllis Schlafly Eagles: “The situation on our southern border IS an invasion. The President is the only one standing up to do anything about it. It's policy invasion.” 

The Media Research Center sent an email on October 22 with the subject “This is an INVASION.” The email claimed, “As you read this, a horde of thousands of migrants from the most violent country in the western Hemisphere is making its way for America’s southern border.” 

Judicial Watch, a right-wing group that’s led by commentator Tom Fitton, sent a June 14 email that directed readers to watch its panel discussion on pro-Trump conservative outlet One America News Network: “If you have OAN, please be sure to tune in and hear from JW’s expert panelists the full, unvarnished facts about the Deep State coup… the illegal alien invasion… and other vitally important issues!” 

Horowitz sent another email to the David Horowitz Freedom Center mailing list on June 12 (emphasis original) claiming that the left is using its “tech and finance monopolies to promote communism, Islamic invasion and open borders. ...and crush any person or group that dares question them into submission.” 

Fox News contributor Ed Rollins, who is also the chairperson of pro-Trump group Great America PAC, sent an email to his group’s list on October 29 with the subject line: “Invasion underway.” 

Right-wing commentator Michael Reagan, who chairs The Conservative Trust of America, sent a sponsored message to Newsmax.com's mailing list on November 1 (emphasis original): “Then there’s the invasion of illegals exploding in numbers. Yet another ruse by the left to paint President Trump in a poor light when he turns them away. It’s so bad he’s had to send 5,000 of our military troops to the border to protect us! The stakes just couldn’t be higher.”