VICTOR JOECKS: Today’s conspiracy theories are tomorrow’s headlines

When conservatives notice, it’s a conspiracy theory. Once liberals acknowledge it, it’s old news. Just look at illegal immigration.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, recently released a report detailing the scope of illegal immigration under the Biden-Harris administration. Since President Joe Biden took office, “over 8.5 million illegal aliens have crossed the southern border, a number greater than the population of 37 states,” the report states.

That’s stunning. It would be bad enough if those illegal immigrants were immediately deported. Many aren’t. The report found “at least 5.6 million illegal aliens have been released into the interior.” There have also been nearly 2 million “gotaways.” That means well over 7 million illegal immigrants have entered the country over the past four years.

Conservatives have long pointed out that Democrats don’t seem to mind illegal immigration because they think it will help electorally.

In 2022, then-Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance said Democrats are trying to “transform the electorate.”

Democrats are “fundamentally trying to change this country through illegal immigration,” now-Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., warned in 2022.

For noticing what’s happening and pointing out the implications, the national mainstream media lampooned conservatives as conspiracy theorists.

“Several mainstream Republican Senate candidates are drawing on the “great replacement” conspiracy theory once confined to the far-right fringes of U.S. politics to court voters this campaign season,” The Associated Press wrote in 2022.

On the far-right fringe, there are people who believe Jews have orchestrated a plot to replace white people in the U.S. That idea is crazy and baseless.

It’s also not what Republicans warned about. They’ve raised concrete concerns based on citizenship.

And they’ve been proved right. In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris called for “an earned pathway to citizenship.”

Translated: She wants to turn millions of lawbreakers into new Democrat voters just like those conspiracy-theorist Republicans said.

Republicans are also concerned that illegal immigrants won’t be waiting for citizenship to vote. In January, former President Donald Trump warned that Democrats are signing illegal immigrants up to vote. This summer, House Republicans passed the SAVE Act, which requires voters to prove their citizenship. Most Democrats opposed it.

“Republicans seize on false theories about immigrant voting,” blared a New York Times headline from Thursday.

“It’s illegal for people who aren’t US citizens to vote in federal contests,” CNN wrote in July.

It’s also illegal for people to come to the U.S. illegally, yet millions already have. As it turns out, simply making something illegal doesn’t guarantee it won’t happen.

Identifying how many illegal immigrants are registered or voted can be difficult. There’s not a comprehensive list of people here illegally. Also, people who commit election fraud generally don’t admit it after the fact so the public can see how big a problem it is. Even so, some states have found thousands of noncitizens on their rolls.

In more than a dozen states, illegal immigrants can get a driver’s license and be automatically registered to vote at the DMV. Some of those states even have universal mail ballots. Uh oh.

A system that vulnerable to fraud isn’t defensible. That’s why the left so often tries to shut down conversations about it with pejorative labels, like conspiracy theory.

Don’t be intimidated.

Contact Victor Joecks him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.