David Brat’s upset victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in yesterday’s Republican primary in Virginia’s seventh congressional district was driven in part by Brat’s no-compromise position on immigration reform, which put him even farther to the right than the not-exactly immigration-friendly Cantor .
Among those celebrating Brat’s surprise win is William Gheen, head of the anti-immigrant hate group ALIPAC , who used some of his group’s meager funds to send out a robocall in the district in the days before the election, playing up the fear that undocumented immigrants would “vote with or against you in future elections.”
While the robocall was an independent endeavor, Brat had actively sought ALIPAC’s endorsement.
In February, Brat’s campaign manager filled out ALIPAC’s candidate survey, which asked prospective endorsees to choose between the enforcement of “immigration laws as the U.S. Constitution requires for the protection of American jobs, elections, taxpayer resources, health and lives” and immigration reform, which it said would “lead to a new voting bloc of 11-20 million illegal immigrants, which would in turn destroy any future hopes of border or immigration law existence or enforcement.” Brat chose the former, and earned Gheen’s endorsement .
Gheen — who is ALIPAC’s chief cook and bottle-washer — is a fringe extremist, even in the already extreme anti-immigrant movement. Here is just a smattering of his paranoid, racist rhetoric, that would have been easily accessible to the Brat campaign through a quick Google search:
- Warns of violent revolution if the Tea Party can’t stop the immigrant “invasion.”
- Says violence may be needed to stop Obama’s war on “white America.”
- Wants President Obama arrested for his immigration policies, possibly through a military coup .
- Blames GOP immigration reform proponents for a “plot against our republic .”
- Claims President Obama is recruiting LGBT immigrants and “arming illegal aliens” as part of a plot to collapse the economy.
- Claims that undocumented immigrants are naturally prone to sexual assault .
- Compares undocumented immigrants to the 9/11 hijackers .
- Calls immigration “national rape” that takes the power away from “traditional Americans.”
- Fears that America will no longer be “governed by people of European descendancy.”
- Claims undocumented immigrants who want to join the military have a “hatred and contempt for American.”
- Warns of “black mobs roaming many U.S. cities targeting and beating the crap out of white people.”
- Demanded that Sen. Lindsey Graham come out as gay because he claimed he was being blackmailed into supporting immigration reform.
