As Missouri GOP candidates target migrants, would KC area bear brunt of future action?

A Missouri candidate for governor said he’ll issue an executive order to arrest “every illegal immigrant” in the state. The House speaker created a committee to investigate crimes by migrants. The state treasurer released an ad showing him at the southern border.

As Missouri Republicans lean into an aggressive anti-migrant message ahead of the Aug. 6 primary election, Kansas City stands to endure the brunt of any targeted action against immigrants and asylum-seekers by state officials and lawmakers.

The sharp rhetoric is triggering alarm among Kansas City immigration advocates, sparking fear about what’s ahead if voters elect the most strident GOP voices on immigration.

“We’re going years back, it’s like we’re going back to the 50s,” said Karla Juarez, executive director of Kansas City-based Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation.

Juarez, an immigrant from Mexico, called the messages discouraging. “We fear for our safety,” she said.

The Kansas City region has been a center of migrant arrivals in Missouri over the past decade, according to U.S. immigration court data analyzed by The Washington Post. Some 8,300 migrants have settled in Jackson County since 2014, with 37% coming from Honduras.

That’s more than the 7,326 migrants who have settled in St. Louis and St. Louis County over that same period.

Across the United States the large numbers of migrants coming into the country, both individuals crossing the border illegally and individuals claiming asylum, is increasingly a bipartisan concern. Some Missouri Democrats, while rejecting Republican rhetoric, have voiced support for additional security at the southern border.

But Missouri GOP candidates, in an effort to win over conservative primary voters, have made sweeping campaign promises placing immigration – typically a federal issue – at the center of the state’s politics.

“It’s an election year and we are always used as talking points in a negative way,” Juarez said.

All the major GOP candidates for governor have emphasized illegal immigration. Their positions are especially important because of the difficulties Democrats face winning statewide elections; a Democrat last won the governor’s race 12 years ago.

Each of the three candidates have also seized on comments Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas made in April welcoming migrant workers who are in the United States legally. Missouri Republicans have repeatedly distorted Lucas’ comments, claiming that he was pushing for Kansas City to become a sanctuary for illegal immigration — which is illegal under state law.

Sen. Bill Eigel, of Weldon Spring, has struck a particularly aggressive posture, promising an order to arrest migrants and deport them – a decision that would face legal challenges. Even if the directive was blocked, it would likely contribute to an atmosphere of fear within immigrant communities.

The two other major Republican candidates for governor, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, have also made immigration a key talking point in their campaigns.

Ashcroft spokesperson Jason Cabel Roe touted Ashcroft’s push to halt illegal immigration in a statement, saying he was the first candidate to call for an “invasion declaration” and the first to call for Missouri troops to deploy to the southern border to help Texas.

“He has consistently been opposed to using tax dollars to support illegal immigrants and has fought Mayor Lucas’s attempts to make Kansas City a sanctuary city,” Roe said. “He will also hold any businesses accountable if they knowingly hire illegal immigrants.”

Pro-Kehoe billboards peppered along Interstate 70 call for a stronger border and the lieutenant governor’s campaign website promises to “provide NO SANCTUARY in our state for illegal immigration.”

Kehoe spokesperson Gabby Picard said in a statement that Kehoe would deport illegal immigrants. She called the situation at the border “a national emergency,” and blamed President Joe Biden.

“Mike Kehoe will stand with President Trump to shut down the border, finish the wall, and deport those here illegally,” Picard said. “As governor, he will ensure Missouri troops stay at the border until the job is finished, defund sanctuary cities, and protect Missourians by enacting the harshest penalties for fentanyl traffickers.”

The issue has even cropped up in the race for state treasurer, an office not historically associated with immigration policy. Treasurer Vivek Malek released an ad this week showing him walking along a strip of wall at the southern border.

“As treasurer, I support President Trump and his wall,” Malek says to the camera.

GOP focus on crimes

State lawmakers are set to further elevate the issue of illegal immigration by holding public hearings this summer.

As he runs for secretary of state, House Speaker Dean Plocher, a Des Peres Republican, created the Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes. The committee will hold its first meeting on Thursday.

The committee is also planning to hold hearings across the state, including in Kansas City in mid-August – events that will allow GOP lawmakers to maximize public attention and TV coverage of the issue.

“With this committee, we will work with our law enforcement to develop strategies that effectively address and crack down on criminal activities associated with illegal immigration. By forming this committee, we are taking a proactive step to ensure that our state remains a safe place for all its citizens,” Plocher said in a statement.

When announcing the committee, Plocher highlighted a handful of examples of crimes committed in Missouri by individuals in the United States illegally. But researchers have found that immigrants have had lower rates of incarceration than U.S.-born individuals for the past 150 years.

A series of bills previously introduced in the General Assembly provide a roadmap for what lawmakers could do in the future. One measure would make it a felony for individuals illegally in the United States to be in Missouri, a change that would allow local and state law enforcement to arrest some migrants.

Rep. Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat and one of two Hispanic lawmakers in the General Assembly, said she hears from Hispanic communities across Missouri that heightened rhetoric is all it takes to feel increased discrimination.

“What we know is that when rhetoric around minority groups being criminals rises, hate crimes rise. People feel emboldened to act on their bigotry,” said Aune, a member of the interim committee.

The Missouri Republican focus on migrants comes after former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee, spent years focusing on the issue, including an unkept promise that the United States would build a wall along the southern border and that Mexico would pay for it.

Congress has also failed to pass significant immigration legislation. After a deal appeared within reach early this year, Trump effectively scuttled the deal by criticizing it. The decision kept immigration alive as a potent issue for Trump and other Republicans to run on this November.

Federal inaction has also created more political space for state officials to act. Immigration enforcement is the domain of the federal government, but state lawmakers have shown a greater willingness to push the boundaries of their authority.

Gov. Mike Parson deployed Missouri National Guard soldiers earlier this year to aid Texas, which has promoted a plan dubbed “Operation Lone Star” that uses Texas state resources to combat illegal border crossings. Parson, who will term out of office in January, heavily promoted the deployment, even though he ultimately vetoed funding to continue it.

Three-fourths of voters say the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border is a crisis that must be resolved immediately, according to a February poll conducted by Saint Louis University and YouGov. Crucially, 97% of Republican voters agreed it’s a crisis.

“It polls off the charts,” John Hancock, a former Missouri Republican Party executive director and chair, said of the focus on immigration. “It’s pretty much that simple.”

Democrats back enhanced border security

For their part, Missouri Democrats have not called for action against migrants currently in the state. However, a growing number of Democratic lawmakers, and candidates, have become more vocal about supporting action at the southern border with Mexico.

House Minority Leader Crystal Quade from Springfield, one of the leading Democratic candidates for governor, cited immigration as a top issue for voters in a statement to The Star. She pointed to her support for money backing Parson’s deployment to the southern border.

“Immigration is an important issue that is on the top of a lot of people’s minds- and there is no denying there is a problem at the border,” Quade said. “When Governor Parson sent troops to the southern border, I voted to ensure they had funding from the state.”

Quade added, however, that she was disappointed that a bipartisan border deal died in Congress, saying it “fell victim to folks in DC playing politics with our border security. Something that we know all too well here in Missouri.”

She said as governor she would use the Missouri National Guard’s counter-drug task force in coordination with federal agencies “to keep Missourians safe.”

Quade’s Democratic rival in the race, businessman Mike Hamra, also criticized Congress’ inaction in a statement. He called the immigration system “broken” and said the federal government is failing at its responsibility.

“Instead of pushing the federal government to do its job, my Republican opponents for Governor are engaging in PR stunts to score political points and wasting Missouri taxpayer money to do it,” Hamra said. “That’s the wrong approach.”