This Is Wildly Racist Even for Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson’s commitment to white nationalism has never really been in question, but in case you needed a refresher, he and a guest took a dive on Monday into the supposedly horrifying scenario where migrants from Central Africa “flood” into the United States from the Southern border.

Carlson, whose face is perpetually frozen in a state between concern and confusion, had former immigration judge Andrew Arthur on the show to talk about a “new migrant surge at the border from Africa.” Syracuse University found that in the period covering 2013 through 2015, Arthur decided 120 asylum cases “on their merits.” He granted just 10 requests for asylum, a denial rate of 91.7 percent; the average denial rate from 2013 to 2018 was 57.6 percent. And in addition to formerly serving as an immigration judge, Arthur was the counsel to the House Judiciary Committee when its proto-Trumpian former chairman Jim Sensenbrenner got a bill through the House that, among other things, made it easier to expel asylum seekers and made illegal entry a felony. The Sensenbrenner bill was the driver behind immigration protests in 2006.

Now, Arthur is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a far-right think tank advocating for hardline immigration restrictions which has been labeled an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Given this introduction, it’s not surprising that Arthur and Carlson had some extremely wild things to say.

Carlson, for example, asked Arthur if the “system is collapsing” because “African migrants are coming across the border from Mexico,” to which Arthur said rather calmly, yes. (The AP reported last week that hundreds of migrants from Central Africa had come to the U.S. requesting asylum, a thing they are legally allowed to do.)

“Their ultimate goal is to come to the United States and live and work here permanently, and this is something that I saw when I was an immigration judge, with Somalis,” Arthur said. “It’s just simply becoming a new group of nationals from Central Africa now, who have heard about how open the American borders are and who want to come and exploit them.”

“The population growth in that part of the world; particularly on the continent of Africa, suggests that this flood could become a torrent, no?” Carlson asked. Again: we’re talking about hundreds of people here, maybe a few thousand.”

“Absolutely,” Arthur responded. “Without the support of our southern neighbors, in the absence of support from the United States Congress, we truly would just be overwhelmed with individuals, you know, from poor countries who have literally sold everything that they had to make the journey to the United States.” The horror!!!

In 2019, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was the top country of origin for refugee arrivals in the United States. Over the past several years, Ukraine has also consistently been in the top 10. We might have to wait a very long time for the somber Carlson segment about the scourge of Slavs at the border.