One late afternoon in mid-May, a half dozen Hispanic day laborers were paid $20 each to parade in front of the White House on camera, holding signs with slogans like “I Love Biden” and “I Need Work Permit for My Family.”

The stunt was orchestrated by Nick Shirley, a pro-Trump online influencer who often asks migrants on camera if they support Democratic President Joe Biden or think he made it easier for them to come to the U.S.

“We want to take you to the White House,” Shirley told the men he recruited at a Home Depot parking lot, where day laborers typically wait for jobs, in a video later posted to YouTube. “What (Biden) did for migrants is very kind, right? Letting everyone come in? So we are going to show him and say thank you.”

Shirley, a 22-year-old with more than 318,000 followers on social media, is among a new class of influencers supportive of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who are helping shape the immigration debate as the U.S. election campaign heats up.

Their self-shot dispatches from American cities and the southern border with Mexico portray migrants in the country illegally as dangerous and burdensome, and part of a plan to grow the ranks of Democratic voters.

    • SeaJ
      18•5 months ago

      Trump, at the very least, told leaders to quash the bill so Biden did not get a win. The bill was basically everything Republicans were asking for.

      Not that I think it was a good bill nor do I agree with Biden’s EO on immigration. But it’s kind of hard for Republicans to complain when they reject implementing what they want.

      • @macarthur_park
        3•5 months ago

        But it’s kind of hard for Republicans to complain when they reject implementing what they want.

        I agree with you in principle, but clearly it’s not that hard since they are actively complaining and polls show voters trust Trump and Republicans over Biden to handle immigration. Somehow, they’re never really constrained by reality.

        • SeaJ
          6•5 months ago

          That sounds like a failure of Democratic messaging which is unfortunately not uncommon. Every Democrat should be pointing out that Republicans killed an immigration bill that implemented what they wanted all because Trump asked them to. Immigration is one of the top issues for most voters (no idea why). I really wish Democrats didn’t suck so bad at marketing.

          One other thing I often see that Democrats suck at talking about is inflation. Most of it has been from price gouging and Biden floated the idea of a windfall tax which was completely rejected by Republicans. Now companies are lowering their prices because people are not as willing to accept the supply chain and wage increase bullshit.

          • @afraid_of_zombies
            7•5 months ago

            Immigration is one of the top issues for most voters

            Racism. That’s why, no mystery here. No one is whining about whites coming over.

          • Hroderic
            2•5 months ago

            It’s exacerbated by the right-wing having a propaganda machine too. Democrats can communicate their wins (ineffectively as they do) but they don’t make headlines like the outrage bait Fox airs. Bullshit asymmetry principle and all that.

          • @Drivebyhaiku
            1•5 months ago

            Democrats are bad at marketing because a lot of them come from the school of political jousting. It’s easy to lose touch with what the regular person believes politics is rather than the reality of the system where you can’t make solid promises because things can go very wrong and playing the game means setting up long term strategy where best case scenario you have to suck short term losses. They are mostly invested in long term preservation of the system so over promising and under delivering is a held fear. In vulgar terms it is shitting where ideologically eat.

            Republicans however basically promise the moon the sun and the stars and then when it doesn’t happen they just rile up their base with anti-federal sentiments to make them rabid. There’s no brakes on the anger machine which means there isn’t a cohesive long term strategy. It’s whatever does the job right here and now so they can as a group benefit off the short term gains. It’s why so many of them are individually crashing and burning. No exit strategy - just commitment to scalp what you can out of the system and ditch before you get consequences. They know they can basically say anything and get what they want.

            It’s a major FUBAR situation and Democrats are only now learning how to publicly perform a sense of political urgency.

        • Optional
          2•5 months ago

          Polls. The Facepals/Instatag of the 1950’s.