huffpost Press
GOP Lawmaker Calls Some Immigrants A ‘Drain On Our Society,’ Echoing 1 Racist Trump Claim
Images
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) on Monday said not all immigrants are “equally compatible” with American culture, slammed Haitians and Somalians as “a net drain” on the U.S. economy and echoed one of the most infamous claims from President Donald Trump. Gill appeared on “The Benny Show” after host Benny Johnson cited a graph published in March from the Center for Immigration Studies showing how many non-citizen households in the U.S. receive welfare assistance. The staunch MAGA influencer said it should be “illegal” for immigrants to “parasitically make our country poorer” and asked why they’re “entitled” to welfare if they “haven’t mowed a lawn in this country.” Gill responded, adding to Johnson’s rhetoric. “If you come into the United States, you are expected to become American; you are not expected to be a hyphenated American perpetually,” he said. “You’re expected to adopt American culture and revere our history and adhere to the cultural norms in our civilization.” Gill continued, “Which, by the way, is the whole reason why people immigrate into the United States, because our culture, I believe in many ways, is superior to other cultures across the globe. We’ve got to recognize that not all cultures are equal.” Johnson cited a social media post earlier in the show that claimed in its caption that a Nigerian immigrant ― whom Johnson called a “Haitian migrant” ― was recently photographed allegedly “cooking” a cat in a public park in Italy. Trump claimed during his 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants were “eating the pets” of residents in Springfield, Ohio. There’s no evidence the latter occurred, and while even the GOP governor of Ohio and a Fox News host debunked Trump’s claim at the time, Gill said about immigrants, “They’re not all equally compatible with America’s governing framework. They’re not all equally moral.” He added, “They’re not— they don’t all have equal dignity. And we ought to recognize that bringing in third-world countries where some lunatic is grilling a cat in an American park, where children are playing around with is a culture that is incompatible with our own.” Johnson went on to cite an X post from the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, alleging that the average IQ in Haiti is about 68 and around 70 in Somalia to decry the “incompatibility” with America’s average IQ of 105, which some data suggest is lower. “Well, that’s the problem,” said Gill. Gill went on to link the IQ of immigrants to their need for welfare, claiming that a population that hasn’t interacted with “the modern American world” can “have a very hard time staying afloat.” He added, “And the result is that they become a net drain, economically, on the rest of the society.” While the Texas Republican went on to claim that “these are basic facts that we’ve got to recognize,” swaths of social media users called his rhetoric “disgusting,” likening it to “unvarnished gutter racism” and “Nazi propaganda.” One X user wrote, “A ‘net drain on the society’ is something Hitler would say.” By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.