Over the last several months, Spanish-speaking conservative personalities on radio and social media have joined the cacophony of right-wing media fearmongering about a supposed invasion of immigrants coming to supposedly destabilize the country.

Some are spreading claims that the recent influx of migrants at the southern U.S. border is part of a “very well-designed plan” by Democrats to “get votes,” while others complain that immigrants are costing taxpayers money because they receive benefits and supposedly cause crime. 

This rhetoric feeds into a pattern of right-wing media fearmongering about an “invasion” of immigrants coming to contaminate and ultimately destroy the American way of life — a notion that stems from the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which has been gaining traction for years. The commentary is also in sync with former President Donald Trump’s incendiary immigration talking points.

In reality, evidence suggests violent crime has fallen across the country since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, and that immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. And it is Republicans, rather than Democrats, who have deliberately blocked bipartisan efforts to reinforce border security for the explicit reason of protecting Trump’s presidential campaign.

Spanish media figures claim Democrats use immigration to get votes

• During an episode of Mucho Que Decir, South Florida radio personality Jorge Diaz-Diaz argued that there’s a “well-designed plan to destabilize the United States” in order “to get votes.” In an earlier episode, Diaz-Diaz claimed, “Immigration is being used with the sinister and political purpose of destabilizing societies. It’s happening here in the United States; it’s happening in Europe.” Mucho Que Decir airs on La Nueva Poderosa, a Miami-based station operated by the Christian conservative media group Salem Media. [La Nueva Poderosa, Mucho Que Decir, 1/3/24, 2/6/24; Miami Herald, 10/19/22]
• In April, Diaz-Diaz's guest Octavio Ramos, a history professor at Miami Dade College, claimed that “the final purpose” for building a path toward citizenship is “to eventually convert all these immigrants into voters and members of the Democratic Party.” Ramos also claimed that “it is no mystery that the traditional American is changing” and “being replaced mainly by Latinos and immigrants from South America, the Caribbean," adding that “the Democrats are well aware of this.” Diaz-Diaz agreed and claimed, “This has been a coldly calculated plan from the beginning. There is no doubt in my mind, and it seems to me that this administration did not leave the border open out of negligence because … everything they have done has been a plan that they have carried out as a kind of movie script with the sole objective of achieving this in the end.” [La Nueva Poderosa, Mucho que Decir, 4/1/24]
• During an episode of the South Florida conservative talk show Cada Tarde, host Agustin Acosta claimed Democrats “must have an ulterior motive” for claiming “the border is closed when the numbers say otherwise.” In that same episode, guest Alfonso Aguilar — the former political director for Americano Media who often appears in mainstream media as a conservative political commentator — argued that “the motive is purely ideological,” and that “there’s a commitment, with this administration, with this president, with parts of the left who want to open the doors of the border wide open and let in millions of people.” He added that there is “a political and ideological goal … to change the composition of the nation and weaken [our] social cohesion and sense of identity by bringing in outsiders who can’t assimilate quickly.” [Actualidad Radio, Cada Tarde, 11/28/23; The New Yorker, 7/15/23, Media Matters, 11/20/23; Twitter/X, 12/7/23; NPR, 1/24/24] 
• On TikTok, conservative personality Pelucas GB referenced a viral TikTok that kindled a right-wing freakout over migrant squatters. He claimed that Democrats have a “macabre plan to destroy the United States.” [TikTok, 3/21/24; Media Matters, 3/22/24, 3/26/24]  
• In another video, TikTok user Luis Sin Filtro, who has over 445,000 followers, claimed that “Democrats opened the borders and are letting in so many people for votes.” He added that “one of the objectives” of “socio-communism” is “infiltrating the United States” and “destroying this country from the inside.” [TikTok, 1/26/24]

Spanish media figures fearmonger about migrant crime and migrants' cost to taxpayers

• In November 2023, Cada Tarde co-host Marián de la Fuente claimed that “Afghans, Iranians, et cetera, who are not necessarily good people looking for opportunity but people whose names appear on the most wanted terrorist lists, are coming into the country.” She added, “We know these are the people that form the terrorist cells inside the country that are ready to attack the country at any moment.” De la Fuente also claimed cities like New York are “sacrificing a large part” of the city budget to “satisfy those immigrants that are filling up our cities at a great cost because now the city will be better suited for crime.”  In 2023, de la Fuente joined Agustin and Carlos Acosta as replacement hosts for Carines Moncada on Actualidad Radio’s Cada Tarde. [Actualidad Radio, Cada Tarde, 11/11/23]
• In January, de la Fuente argued the Biden administration’s “open-door policies” are causing “local governments, who obviously have no resources, to take away something as important as security from their citizens.” De la Fuente claimed this “is the case in New York, for example, as Mayor Adams said, because they don’t have a way to face this mob,” and added that Democrats “turned so-called sanctuary cities into a real nightmare.” [Actualidad Radio, Cada Tarde, 1/4/24]
• In February, Hoy por Hoy host Carines Moncada claimed of immigrants: “You can even commit a crime; you can beat up a cop, then two, three weeks later, you can steal at a Macy's and walk free, and there's no problem.” Moncada also said that “one has to leave the country and enter through the border because apparently there are more benefits for illegal people.” Segment guest Alfonso Aguilar agreed and argued that people are concerned about immigration because the government is “taking resources away” from citizens. [America TeVe, Hoy por Hoy, 2/15/24]
• During a Spanish-language interview with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Lucy Pereda, the host of Lucy Pereda, Sin Censura, claimed that criminal organizations are “recruiting other immigrants through WhatsApp groups.” She continued that “there is no way to detect all these hundreds of thousands of people who are criminals with bad intentions who have come into our country.” She also claimed, “Many people are of the opinion that this rampant immigration problem, which many are already calling an invasion, is by design, it's not by ineptitude.” [Radio Mambi, Lucy Pereda, Sin Censura, 2/22/24]