Pelosi calls Title 42 hold-up in COVID-19 bill ‘blackmail’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday said holding up a COVID-19 relief bill as a way to demand a vote on Title 42, a Trump-era pandemic public health policy that allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border and prevents them from seeking asylum, is “blackmail,” but she appeared open to the notion of Congress holding a vote on the controversial measure. The comments came after Senate Republicans in early April blocked the upper chamber from advancing a $10 billion COVID-19 bill after Democrats refused to vote on an amendment that called for blocking the Biden administration from rescinding Title 42. An increasing number of Senate Democrats, however, are becoming more open to holding a vote on the controversial policy. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) last week said “there’s a growing willingness to bring that up and have the amendment votes necessary to get it to a final vote.” Pelosi on Sunday said “there’s no use holding it up to blackmail, as the Republicans are trying to do.” “We’re working on it. We will find a way. It has to be done, because people continuing to hear every moment — all the time now, hopefully not as deadly as the previous COVID-19. But, nonetheless, we must pass the package,” she added. Pressed on whether Congress would pass the funding even if it includes the Title 42 amendment, Pelosi said, “I don’t even know why 42 would be on it. It has nothing to do with it.” She did, however, say “the fact is now that we have to either substitute for it, but we much pass the COVID package.” The U.S. has observed an increase in COVID-19 cases over the past month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though the numbers still remain far lower than previous outbreaks. By some estimate, the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. reached the 1 million mark this month. The Speaker on Sunday noted the grim milestone, telling CNN “the sadness of this lingers on, causing all kinds of trauma for families, mental health issues, sadness for families.” “You would think that the Republicans would take that into consideration,” she added. She also recognized the passage of a Ukraine funding bill last week, which the lower chamber passed without COVID-19 funding included. Congressional leaders were considering linking the two priorities. Five things to know about the UFO hearing McConnell condemns Buffalo shooting; doesn’t explicitly criticize replacement theory Pelosi said the House leadership decided not to include COVID-19 funding in the Ukraine bill because Republicans did not support that track. “We wanted to put COVID on there. They said no. We said, ‘OK, Ukraine, urgent, right this minute. We will do that.’ But we have to do the COVID package. There’s no use holding it up to blackmail, as the Republicans are trying to do,” she said. For more information, contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html

'Replacement' conspiracies driving gunmen creep into mainstream politics

Critics are drawing parallels between the pattern of racist gunmen citing fears of a conspiracy to "replace" Whites with rhetoric pushed on Fox and by some Republican politicians. The mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday was not the first such event in recent years in which a White gunman, who allegedly posted a White supremacist manifesto online, targeted the Black or immigrant community. It's not the second. Or the third. Mass shooting at Buffalo supermarket was a racist hate crime, police say Mass shooting at Buffalo supermarket was a racist hate crime, police say Overtly racist lone gunmen motivated by such hate have, in recent years, targeted a Black church in South Carolina, a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and immigrants at a Walmart in El Paso. Read CNN's report. Some apparently drew inspiration from a shooting by a White man in New Zealand who targeted mosques, killing 51, and published his own manifesto about "The Great Replacement." Now, Buffalo. Get the latest on: The Buffalo shooting and the victims: 10 people were killed at a supermarket and authorities say it was hate crime. The gunman exchanged fire with and killed an armed security guard. The shooter: The suspect is 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who traveled from another New York county hours away and livestreamed the attack on the social media platform Twitch. "Replacement theory" motivation -- According to a 180-page document posted online, attributed to Gendron, he was fixated on what's known as "replacement theory" -- the idea that Whites are being slowly and intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants. Variations on this basic idea -- that Whites are being replaced by some sort of minority-driven conspiracy -- have made their way into more than just the musings of gunmen. The Fox and GOP version of replacement theory. Critics say it is dangerously close to xenophobic rhetoric finding its way into the mainstream of American politics. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, pointed the finger squarely at her party's leadership Monday morning, saying it has "enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them." And after the shooting in Buffalo, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican who has split with his party by criticizing former President Donald Trump, tried to make a connection between an old Facebook ad published by Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, and replacement theory. Buffalo massacre further rattles an insecure nation Buffalo massacre further rattles an insecure nation "Did you know: @EliseStefanik pushes white replacement theory? The #3 in the house GOP," Kinzinger said on Twitter, linking to media coverage that the congresswoman's Facebook ads received in 2021, including a critical editorial from a local newspaper. The Facebook ads from her campaign last September suggested Democrats wanted to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants to create a permanent liberal majority in Washington. CNN has reached out to Stefanik about Kinzinger's comment. Replacement pattern. That ad is part of a larger narrative. Tucker Carlson, the Fox host, has pushed the idea that Democrats want to import new voters to dilute the votes of other Americans, presumably Whites like him. Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio and City University of New York media studies professor James Cohen wrote a CNN opinion piece last year about how the concept of replacement theory has festered in US politics for decades, but has recently become easy to decode in segments on Carlson's show and in remarks by lawmakers. Read more. CNN's Chris Cillizza has documented how the concept of replacement theory has been mentioned by lawmakers like GOP Rep. Scott Perry, who said this at a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in April of 2021: "For many Americans, what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is happening is what appears to them is we're replacing national-born American — native-born Americans to permanently transform the landscape of this very nation," the Pennsylvania Republican said in reference to the number of people trying to enter the country at the United States' southern border. "Uncomfortably" close. This is not to say Perry's comment, Carlson's broadcasts or Stefanik's ad are the same as what's represented in the writings, allegedly from Gendron or other gunmen. They're not. But it is also impossible to deny certain parallels in the language. "This tension, this frustration, this fear sits not that far from our mainstream politics," journalist Wesley Lowery said on CNN's Inside Politics Sunday. "One thing is unquestionably true," he added. "Very often the rhetoric in our politics sits uncomfortably close to the rhetoric that these kind of terrorists espouse." Pledges to fight racism. But how? President Joe Biden, who is headed to Buffalo on Tuesday, pledged to fight racism. "Any act of domestic terrorism, including an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology, is antithetical to everything we stand for in America," he said in a statement on Saturday. "Hate must have no safe harbor. We must do everything in our power to end hate-fueled domestic terrorism." Race is enmeshed in US politics. Political rhetoric often feeds replacement fears by highlighting racial divides that are enmeshed in American life and politics. The issue of immigration will loom over this fall's midterm elections as Biden struggles with how to end Trump-era immigration policy that has kept US borders largely closed. The related issues of voting rights and election security often pit GOP-led states like Georgia, Texas and Florida against big cities with their large minority populations. Seeking accountability from social media companies. Democratic politicians like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued Sunday that social media companies should bear some responsibility. "This spreads like a virus," Hochul told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." She said CEOs of social media companies must look a their policies and do more to take racist content down. "They have to be able to identify when information like this -- the second it hits the platform, it needs to be taken down, because this is spreading like wildfire." Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla who has been in the process of buying Twitter, has said he would go in the opposite direction. He's a self-described free speech absolutist and would allow more, not less, speech online. Buffalo and gun laws. The gun control debate has shown us that even tragic shooting after tragic shooting will lead to very little concrete action so long as a minority of senators, locked together, can stop any legislation New York already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and Hochul said she would look to close loopholes in state law that she said allowed magazines like the one apparently used in Buffalo across state lines. Separately, Bash asked Pelosi if Democrats should place higher priority on passing gun safety measures like a stricter background check proposal passed by the House that was stalled in the Senate. Pelosi argued the math makes passing such bills a challenge. "The fact is the 60-vote majority in the Senate is an obstacle to doing any, many good things, unfortunately, and again, we are not going away until the job is done," Pelosi said. For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com/

Providing baby formula for babies held at the border is a legal requirement

As frightened parents grapple with the country’s ongoing shortage of baby formula, some politicians are criticizing the Biden administration, claiming it’s prioritizing immigrant children detained at the border over American families. The narrative took off after U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., shared a side-by-side photo comparison of a scene from the southwest border and a U.S. grocery store. "The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula," Cammack tweeted on May 11. "The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce. This is what America last looks like." A border patrol agent in Texas sent her the photo, Cammack said. She said the agent told her that his facility had been receiving pallets of formula for immigrants who crossed into the U.S. illegally. Before long, other Republicans and news outlets like Fox News picked up the story. In a joint statement on May 12, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd took aim at President Joe Biden’s policies. "While mothers and fathers stare at empty grocery store shelves in a panic, the Biden administration is happy to provide baby formula to illegal immigrants coming across our southern border," read the statement. "This is yet another one in a long line of reckless, out-of-touch priorities from the Biden administration when it comes to securing our border and protecting Americans." PolitiFact was unable to independently verify the authenticity of Cammack’s photo, and a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not weigh in on that. It is also unclear when this formula was sent, how long it’s been there or how many people need it. We don’t see a reason to doubt that the photo is real; what’s missing from this controversy is context. Allen Orr, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that detention facilities regularly stockpile supplies. "The formula is there because it’s always there," Orr said. Some states are struggling less with the formula shortage than others, he said. "Are they taking it, too? Or does it just happen to be there?" What’s more, the Biden administration would be breaking the law if it did not have a supply of formula and other food for people detained in government facilities. Flores settlement requirements for kids in custody Central to this issue is the 1997 Flores settlement, an agreement that sets standards regarding when U.S. immigration officials can detain unaccompanied minors, how those minors must be treated, and how and when minors should be released from federal custody. FEATURED FACT-CHECK The settlement required officials to release children from detention without delay to a parent or legal guardian, an adult relative or a licensed juvenile program willing to accept custody. A minor can be detained temporarily if it is deemed necessary for the child’s safety or to ensure the child’s timely appearance before an immigration court, according to the agreement. Since 1997, additional rulings by federal judges have interpreted the Flores settlement to mean "that all minors in detention — accompanied by their parents or not — cannot be held for more than 20 days," according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration. When officials determine it is necessary to detain a child, however, the Flores settlement requires that minors be held "in facilities that are safe and sanitary." The facility must provide food and drinking water, among other requirements. For infants, that means officials must provide baby formula. A 2015 U.S. Customs and Border Protection document about detention standards acknowledged this: "Food must be appropriate for at-risk detainees’ age and capabilities (such as formula and baby food)." A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson provided a statement to PolitiFact that said the agency complies with regulations to make sure all migrants have their basic needs met. The spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about when or where the baby formula in Cammack’s photograph was purchased and stored. Orr said the government is both morally and legally obligated to feed detained children, even during a formula shortage. He referenced both the Flores settlement and international human rights commitments. "Anyone in a detention facility is afforded food," he said. Trump and the Flores agreement It’s worth mentioning that former President Donald Trump also followed the rules of the Flores agreement. Trump fought to enact a rule that would have allowed indefinite detention of migrant children, effectively putting an end to the Flores agreement, but his effort was unsuccessful and the administration followed the Flores requirements, the Washington Post reported. In one 2020 report about how the Trump administration struggled to manage the 2019 influx of migrants at the border, Department of Homeland Security officials said they "observed all Border Patrol stations had food, snacks, juice, and infant formula available for children." We reached out to Cammack and Abbott for comment and did not hear back by deadline. Our ruling In a statement, Abbott said the Biden administration choosing to send baby formula to the border "is yet another one in a long line of reckless, out-of-touch priorities" on the border. An unverified photo suggests that the Biden administration has shelves stocked with baby formula to feed infants at processing centers near the border amid a nationwide formula shortage. What’s missing from claims like Abbott’s is that the Biden administration’s actions are in keeping with what previous presidents have done to comply with a federal settlement governing the detention of immigrant children. The baby formula shortage continues to cause stress for many American families, but it does not release the government from its legal responsibility to provide adequate care and nutrition to the children in its custody. The claim contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

US states argue to keep contentious border policy in place

US court is hearing challenge to Biden administration’s plan to end Title 42 restriction at US-Mexico border this month. Migrants at the border Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri sued the Biden administration over its plan to end the 'Title 42' border policy and were later joined by 18 other states in their legal challenge [File: Christian Chavez/AP Photo] Published On 13 May 2022 13 May 2022 A group of 21 US states have argued that the Biden administration’s plan to lift a contentious border restriction that barred most asylum seekers from seeking protection at the US-Mexico border was made without sufficient consideration of the effects it would have. Drew Ensign, a lawyer representing the states involved in the legal challenge, told US District Judge Robert Summerhays on Friday that their lawsuit was “not about the policy wisdom” behind the announcement to end the policy on May 23. KEEP READING list of 3 items list 1 of 3 US announces end to Title 42 expulsions at Mexico border list 2 of 3 Three states sue Biden administration over ending Title 42 policy list 3 of 3 As Title 42 winds down, aid groups prepare for shift at US border end of list Rather, Ensign argued that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not follow proper administrative procedures requiring public notice and the gathering of comments on the decision to end the restrictions imposed under what is known as Title 42. More than 1.8 million Title 42 expulsions have been carried out since March 2020, when the policy was first invoked under former President Donald Trump’s administration as the nation was going into lockdown due to COVID-19. Rights groups have said the move was made largely to deter asylum at the border, however. Title 42 has allowed US authorities to quickly expel most asylum seekers who arrived at the border without giving them chance to request protection in the country, which rights groups said violated US and international law. Migrants being returned The US states that sued are alleging that proper consideration was not given to increases in border crossings and their possible effects [File: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters] The lawsuit came after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on April 1 that the restriction would be lifted by May 23 after the CDC said it was no longer needed. Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri quickly sued and were later joined by 18 other states in the legal challenge being heard on Friday. Texas sued independently. The states have alleged that proper consideration was not given to the resulting increases in border crossings and their possible effects, including pressure on state healthcare systems and the diversion of border law enforcement resources from drug interdiction to controlling illegal crossings. Jean Lin, with the Department of Justice, argued on Friday that the CDC was within its authority to lift an emergency health restriction it felt was no longer needed. She said the CDC order was a matter of health policy, not immigration policy. Sign up here to get weekly updates about The Americas E-mail address Sign up By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy “There is no basis to use Title 42 as a safety valve,” Lin told Summerhays. Several migrant advocacy groups have asked Summerhays to at least allow Title 42 to be lifted as planned in California and New Mexico, two border states that have not challenged the administration’s decision. ADVERTISING But the effort to end the policy came just months before crucial US midterm elections in November, and it appeared to have emboldened some Republicans who want to make immigration an issue before the vote. Migrants being returned to Mexico Rights groups say Title 42 violates US and international law [File: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters] “Ending refugee protection for those fleeing violence and human rights violations is a betrayal of the Democrats’ supposed values and our nation’s identity,” Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a group that advocates for immigration reform, said in a statement on Wednesday. “It will do nothing to stop Republican attacks and falsehoods over the border, and it will do nothing to modernize our immigration system so that it serves our interests and reflects our values,” Sharry said in a statement. US authorities stopped asylum seekers more than 221,000 times at the Mexican border in March, a 22-year high. Many of those were repeat crossers. Title 42 authority has been applied unevenly across nationalities. Mexico has agreed to take back migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico — but largely refused to take back people from other countries. Under Title 42, the US has flown Haitian asylum seekers, including those who had not lived in the country for years, to the crisis-stricken nation on board deportation flights. ADVERTISING Earlier this year, however, US border officials exempted Ukrainians fleeing the war from Title 42 expulsions and allowed them to enter the US through the US-Mexico border. For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com/

A Fringe Conspiracy Theory, Fostered Online, Is Refashioned by the G.O.P.

Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators. Give this article 1.2K The belief in replacement theory fueled the right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 that erupted in violence. The belief in replacement theory fueled the right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 that erupted in violence. Credit...Edu Bayer for The New York Times By Nicholas Confessore and Karen Yourish Published May 15, 2022 Updated May 16, 2022, 10:23 a.m. ET Inside a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, a white man with a history of antisemitic internet posts gunned down 11 worshipers, blaming Jews for allowing immigrant “invaders” into the United States. The next year, another white man, angry over what he called “the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” opened fire on shoppers at an El Paso Walmart, leaving 23 people dead, and later telling the police he had sought to kill Mexicans. And in yet another deadly mass shooting, unfolding in Buffalo on Saturday, a heavily armed white man is accused of killing 10 people after targeting a supermarket on the city’s predominantly Black east side, writing in a lengthy screed posted online that the shoppers there came from a culture that sought to “ethnically replace my own people.” Three shootings, three different targets — but all linked by one sprawling, ever-mutating belief now commonly known as replacement theory. At the extremes of American life, replacement theory — the notion that Western elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to “replace” and disempower white Americans — has become an engine of racist terror, helping inspire a wave of mass shootings in recent years and fueling the 2017 right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Va., that erupted in violence. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story But replacement theory, once confined to the digital fever swamps of Reddit message boards and semi-obscure white nationalist sites, has gone mainstream. In sometimes more muted forms, the fear it crystallizes — of a future America in which white people are no longer the numerical majority — has become a potent force in conservative media and politics, where the theory has been borrowed and remixed to attract audiences, retweets and small-dollar donations. By his own account, the Buffalo suspect, Payton S. Gendron, followed a lonelier path to radicalization, immersing himself in replacement theory and other kinds of racist and antisemitic content easily found on internet forums, and casting Black Americans, like Hispanic immigrants, as “replacers” of white Americans. Yet in recent months, versions of the same ideas, sanded down and shorn of explicitly anti-Black and antisemitic themes, have become commonplace in the Republican Party — spoken aloud at congressional hearings, echoed in Republican campaign advertisements and embraced by a growing array of right-wing candidates and media personalities. Editors’ Picks Nobody Makes Films Like Alex Garland. But He Might Stop Making Them. What’s Down the Road for Silicon? An Intimate Look at Mexico’s Indigenous Seri People Continue reading the main story Image Replacement theory is a central theme on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox. Replacement theory is a central theme on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox.Credit...Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times No public figure has promoted replacement theory more loudly or relentlessly than the Fox host Tucker Carlson, who has made elite-led demographic change a central theme of his show since joining Fox’s prime-time lineup in 2016. A Times investigation published this month showed that in more than 400 episodes of his show, Mr. Carlson has amplified the notion that Democratic politicians and other assorted elites want to force demographic change through immigration, and his producers sometimes scoured his show’s raw material from the same dark corners of the internet that the Buffalo suspect did. “It’s not a pipeline. It’s an open sewer,” said Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor who was fired in 2020 after defending the network’s decision to call Arizona for then-candidate Joseph R. Biden, and who wrote a forthcoming book on how media outlets stoke anger to build audiences. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story “Cable hosts looking for ratings and politicians in search of small-dollar donations can see which stories and narratives are drawing the most intense reactions among addicted users online,” Mr. Stirewalt said. Social media sites and internet forums, he added, are “like a focus group for pure outrage.” In just the past year, Republican luminaries like Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and Georgia congressman, and Elise Stefanik, the center-right New York congresswoman turned Trump acolyte (and third-ranking House Republican), have echoed replacement theory. Appearing on Fox, Mr. Gingrich declared that leftists were attempting to “drown” out “classic Americans.” Image Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, has echoed replacement theory. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, has echoed replacement theory.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times In September, Ms. Stefanik released a campaign ad on Facebook claiming that Democrats were plotting “a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION” by granting “amnesty” to illegal immigrants, which her ad said would “overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” That same month, after the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights group, called on Fox to fire Mr. Carlson, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, stood up both for the TV host and for replacement theory itself. “@TuckerCarlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening to America,” Mr. Gaetz wrote on Twitter. In a statement after the Buffalo shooting, Mr. Gaetz said that he had “never spoken of replacement theory in terms of race.” One in three American adults now believe that an effort is underway “to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains,” according to an Associated Press poll released this month. The poll also found that people who mostly watched right-wing media outlets like Fox News, One America News Network and Newsmax were more likely to believe in replacement theory than those who watched CNN or MSNBC. Live Updates: Buffalo Shooting Updated May 16, 2022, 4:59 p.m. ET53 minutes ago 53 minutes ago The shooting in Buffalo is the third at a grocery store in recent years. How guns are taken away under New York’s ‘red flag’ law. A father buying his 3-year-old son’s birthday cake was among the victims. Underlying all variations of replacement rhetoric is the growing diversity of the United States over the past decade, as the populations of people who identify as Hispanic and Asian surged and the number of people who said they were more than one race more than doubled, according to the Census Bureau. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Democratic politicians have generally been more supportive of immigration than Republicans, especially in the post-Trump era, and have pushed for more humane treatment of migrants and refugees. But the number of immigrants living in the United States illegally, which rose throughout the 1990s and 2000s, first began to decline under President Obama, a Democrat whom critics nicknamed the “deporter-in-chief.” There is no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens and others who are ineligible. And while Mr. Biden has laid out plans to expand legal immigration, federal agencies have expelled more than 1.3 million migrants at the southwest border on his watch, while continuing some of the more restrictive immigration policies begun by former President Trump. Throughout his presidency, Mr. Trump filled his public speeches and Twitter feed with often inflammatory, sometimes false rhetoric about immigrants, and he employed the term “invaders” in arguing for a border wall. Such language has been more broadly adopted by his most ardent supporters, such as Wendy Rogers, an Arizona state senator, who last summer said on Twitter, “We are being replaced and invaded” by illegal immigrants. Image President Donald Trump at a rally in 2018. He has employed the term “invaders” in arguing for a border wall. President Donald Trump at a rally in 2018. He has employed the term “invaders” in arguing for a border wall. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Efforts to reach Ms. Rogers on Sunday were unsuccessful. Reached by email, Mr. Gingrich declared replacement theory “insane,” adding that he was opposed to all anti-Semitism as well as “the white racist violence in Buffalo.” Responding to criticism of Ms. Stefanik’s ad in the wake of the Buffalo shooting, a senior adviser for the congresswoman sent two responses: a sorrowful statement from Ms. Stefanik about the killing in Buffalo, and a fiery rejoinder from the adviser that “despite sickening and false reporting,” the congresswoman “has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.” Experts who study digital extremism and media described a complex interplay between the darker version of replacement theory that features on white nationalist or nativist websites, and the attenuated versions now echoing around the conventional right, including on cable news and in pro-Trump media outlets. “Someone like Carlson can introduce viewers to ideas that they then explore more fully online, searches that lead them into far-right spaces that either reinforce their existing views or radicalize them,” said Nicole Hemmer, a historian at Columbia University. “But someone like Carlson is also important because he legitimates those ideas, making them seem less radical when viewers see them.” ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Measuring the extent of Mr. Carlson’s influence in spreading replacement theory may be impossible. But controversies around the host’s use of “replacement” rhetoric appear to have at least helped drive public curiosity about the idea. Until the Buffalo shootings, according to Google data, there had been three big spikes in Google searches for “replacement theory” or “great replacement,” a European variation popularized by the French writer Renaud Camus in recent years. Two followed the shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, each covered by news outlets around the world. The third came in April 2021, when Mr. Carlson drew calls for Fox to fire him after defending the idea of demographic “replacement” on the network. The Buffalo suspect appears to have immersed himself on web forums like 4chan and 8chan, where versions of replacement theory abound. That is also where the suspect, before setting out to slaughter Black shoppers in Buffalo, posted a 180-page compendium of racist arguments and internet memes. He wrote that he got his news from Reddit. He began browsing 4chan in May 2020 “after extreme boredom,” he wrote, and quickly found a gateway to anti-Black and antisemitic replacement content. Reflecting the most extreme versions of replacement theory, the suspect deemed Black people, like immigrants, as “replacers”: people who “invade our lands, live on our soil, live on government support and attack and replace our people.” Image A crowd outside Tops market for a vigil the day after a gunman killed 10 people at the store. A crowd outside Tops market for a vigil the day after a gunman killed 10 people at the store.Credit...Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times According to a detailed analysis by the Anti-Defamation League provided to The Times, the suspect’s screed plagiarized almost two-thirds of another manifesto — the one left by an Australian man who in 2019 murdered dozens of Muslims as they prayed in two mosques in Christchurch. In some instances, the Buffalo suspect replaced the Christchurch killer’s references to Angela Merkel, the former German chancellor, with George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist. One page of the Australian’s document includes a purported count of Jews working at the senior levels of major media outlets, including Fox itself. Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said that the Buffalo suspect’s repurposing of the Christchurch manifesto to justify an attack on Black Americans “demonstrates the evolving and interactive nature of extremist propaganda.” Mr. Carlson’s replacement rhetoric comes without the explicitly antisemitic elements common on racist web platforms. There is no indication that the Buffalo gunman watched Mr. Carlson’s show, or any other on Fox, and Mr. Carlson has denounced political violence even as he fans his viewers’ fears. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story But there are also notable echoes between Mr. Carlson’s segments and the Buffalo suspect’s long litany of grievances, reflecting the blurry boundary between internet-fueled griping and lines of attack now common in conservative media and politics. “Why is diversity said to be our greatest strength? Does anyone even ask why? It is spoken like a mantra and repeated ad infinitum,” the suspect wrote. The line nearly matches one of Mr. Carlson’s go-to attacks on Fox. “How, precisely, is diversity our strength?” Mr. Carlson asked in a 2018 segment, one of many in which he has hit on the question. “Since you’ve made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it.” A Fox spokeswoman declined to comment. Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, a group that waged a successful civil suit against organizers of the 2017 Charlottesville rally, argued that the broader promotion of replacement rhetoric normalized hate and emboldened violent extremists. “This is the inevitable result of the normalization of white supremacist Replacement Theory in all its forms,” Ms. Spitalnick said. “Tucker Carlson may lead that charge — but he’s backed by Republican elected officials and other leaders eager to amplify this deadly conspiracy.” For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com/