House Republicans officially impeached Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, the culmination of years of pushing a right-wing conspiracy theory that alleges nefarious forces — in this case, Mayorkas, but also the Biden administration more broadly — are facilitating an immigrant “invasion” of the United States.
The invasion rhetoric draws directly from the white supremacist “great replacement” theory, which claims liberals (often Jewish liberals like George Soros) are encouraging mass migration to alter a country’s demographic makeup and to diminish white conservatives’ political power. The conspiracy theory has been promoted by several mass shooters, including the gunman who killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
So it comes then as no surprise that several Jewish groups would denounce the House’s impeachment as another vehicle to normalize white nationalist views.
On Tuesday, Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the advocacy group Jewish Council on Public Affairs, denounced the Mayorkas impeachment, writing:
“Over and over again we see members of Congress play politics with the lives of immigrants and asylum seekers while further normalizing antisemitic, white supremacist conspiracy theories and extremism. We’ve seen the deadly consequences of the ‘invasion’ and ‘replacement’ rhetoric that underpinned this impeachment effort — directly fueling violence in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Poway, El Paso, Buffalo, and beyond. This dehumanizing bigotry puts all our lives at risk, yet House leaders once again cynically doubled down on it to score political points while making our communities less safe.”
Spitalnick reiterates a statement her organization coordinated and signed with 17 other Jewish advocacy groups last week that also highlighted the white nationalism underlying the Mayorkas impeachment. And she has experience pushing back against “great replacement” bigotry on the right: She led a legal organization that helped win civil judgments for victims of the 2017 deadly white supremacist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, where right-wing thugs chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
The contrived impeachment articles allege that the DHS secretary has “willfully and systemically refused to comply” with immigration laws, a claim that has no basis in reality. And Republican House members’ near-universal support for this impeachment shows how a white supremacist talking point has been mainstreamed in the conservative movement.
Outside of this procedural sideshow, several GOP lawmakers have gotten quite comfortable spreading “great replacement” talking points, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (who said on Fox News that “Democrats are going to bring in millions and millions of illegals and turn them into Democrat voters.”) and Freedom Caucus back-benchers like Michigan Rep. Matt Maddock (who recently held a news conference with a “Democrat Border Invasion” sign).
So as Republicans try to give their impeachment push against Mayorkas a veneer of legitimacy, never forget that it’s rooted in racist schlock scraped from right-wing message boards.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.