Lauren Boebert has been notable for her stance on immigration in recent months, falsely claiming that the U.S. had an “open border” and blaming immigrants for the increase in COVID-19 cases in the country. These messages have been highly incendiary and in clear contradiction to facts. But it seems she has had an interest in using immigration as a political talking point for more than a decade, as her far-right views have been documented by reports from 2006. According to the CBC, in 2006 Boebert told a rally in Spicer, Minnesota that the Canadian border needed to be secured from undocumented migrants coming in from Mexico. She made numerous incendiary statements to the crowd that day, calling migrants “invaders” and warning of the effects of multiculturalism. She also raised concerns about “border jumping” and the threat of terrorism that this posed, in an echo of Trump’s later “build the wall” rhetoric. Her views on immigration at this time mirrored those of the far-right Minuteman organization, which calls for a heavily militarized border. Though much of her rhetoric has remained consistent over the years, it appears that Boebert’s stance on immigration has become even more extreme in the intervening time.
Lauren Boebert’s migrant misinformation trail winds back to Canada 2006
