Indiana Democratic Party

10/18/2024 | Press release | Archived content

Braun Backs Beckwith’s Call to Deport Legal Immigrants

Braun Backs Beckwith's Call to Deport Legal Immigrants

October 18, 2024


INDIANAPOLIS -
The Mike Braun-Micah Beckwith ticket continues its extremism, this time attacking legal immigrants. Braun backed Beckwith's plan to "deport" Hoosiers in a statement earlier this afternoon and refused to deny that he would lead this charge if elected governor.

Braun's statement peddled baseless lies about his opponent's record on immigration and also hid the clear plain truth that it was Braun himself and far-right politicians in Congress who blocked the bipartisan border security bill in the U.S. Senate earlier this year.

Braun refuses to stand up to his rogue and ultra-conservative running mate. Remember, Braun said on the convention stage in June about his running mate Beckwith: "Everything you believe in, I have as well."

"All Mike Braun and Micah Beckwith are offering the people of Indiana is name-calling and divisive culture wars," said Indiana Democratic Party Chair Mike Schmuhl. "They want to divide our communities and distract from the issues that matter to Hoosiers, like creating high-wage jobs, increasing access to affordable healthcare, and ensuring a quality public education for every child. Legal immigration helped form America into the greatest country in the history of the world, and Hoosier Hospitality is one of our state's most important exports. We don't need charlatans like Mike Braun and Micah Beckwith who only divide us more. Extremist Republicans have tried to use the same playbook for twenty years, and Indiana couldn't be further behind our neighbors on abortion rights, quality of life, voting rights, and cannabis policy. I'm confident that most Hoosiers can see through these lies and will choose common sense instead, starting by electing Jennifer McCormick and Terry Goodin on November 5."

###

ICYMI: Beckwith called for the mass deportation of all legal immigrants from Haiti in Indiana while on WOWO radio in Fort Wayne Thursday.

"Instead, he suggested, without evidence, that Logansport's Haitian residents were there to take over the town.

"This is an invasion," he told Blakeslee. "This isn't immigration."

Beckwith went on to predict that when their TPS designations expire, those Haitian immigrants will stay in Logansport with expired visas.

"We all know that they're going to stay here," he said. "They will be illegal at that point. But by that point, it's already too late."

Using his own unsubstantiated prediction as justification, Beckwith told Blakeslee that elected officials needed to preemptively deport Logansport's legal Haitian immigrants.

"We have to have leaders in our local community that are willing to do the hard work of identifying the people who should not be in our community and then working with the state to get them out."" (Fort Wayne Politics, 10.18,2024)