Kris Kobach Adds 'Breitbart Columnist' To His Busy Resume
Kansas' nativist secretary of state, already occupied with Voter Fraud Commission and gubernatorial candidacy, goes all-in with alt-right publication.
Kris Kobach is a busy man these days.
In addition to his duties as Kansas鈥� Secretary of State, as well as vice chair of the so-called , not to mention providing advice to President Trump on immigration-related issues, as well as his ongoing candidacy for Kansas鈥� governorship, Kobach now has a new gig:
He defended adding the columns to his duties to "I get paid for my columns...just like you're paid."
So far, Kobach has penned seven columns for Breitbart, all of them well within the vein of nativist politics he has made his specialty. The headlines sum up the viewpoint well: 鈥淩efugees and Terrorism: A Massive Vulnerability in Our Immigration System,鈥� 鈥淚t鈥檚 Time to Stop Sanctuary Cities and Counties,鈥� and 鈥淭he Opportunity of a Generation to Shrink Government Through Attrition.鈥�
It鈥檚 also clear that Kobach is not just an ordinary columnist in terms of his influence and reach. His most recent column 鈥斅爃eadlined 鈥淭he DACA Amnesty Must Be Ended鈥� 鈥斅爓as published just last week, only days before that indeed Trump intends to end the so-called 鈥淒reamers鈥� program that permitted certain undocumented immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children to remain in the country.
Kobach, for that matter, spent much of the week smearing DACA students as likely 鈥済angbangers鈥� and claiming the program was illegal on cable news talk shows.
On Fox News, he claimed: 鈥淭he legal question isn鈥檛 even a close one 鈥� This one鈥檚 illegal. It violates three different federal laws, it violates the Constitution.鈥� (A group of 100 law professors last week asserting that the opposite was true, urging him to retain DACA.)
Most of all, Kobach served up for TV audiences the smear tactics common to the nativists鈥� attacks on the program, warning that that permitting 鈥淒reamers鈥� to remain in the U.S. would 鈥渙nly encourage additional illegal immigration."
"The DACA (population) is a cross section of the illegal alien population," Kobach "There are criminals, there are scholars. But it鈥檚 not an especially higher achieving cross-section of the illegal alien population."
"What happens is a lot of gang-bangers get arrested, but the state won鈥檛 have the resources to prosecute all of them, and so they鈥檙e released," he added.
"It used to be before DACA that the local county sheriff would release them to ICE in hope that ICE would deport them," he added. "But we have many cases of such individuals who are getting the DACA amnesty 鈥斅爐hey鈥檝e been arrested, they haven鈥檛 yet been convicted. But that arrest isn鈥檛 enough to disqualify them from DACA."
Kobach鈥檚 columns at Breitbart also make clear that he has no intention of maintaining any appearance of objectivity in his role overseeing the Voter Fraud Commission, which is looking at ways to deprive immigrants and others of the ability to vote under the rubric of preventing vote fraud. (Just last week, lawyers for the panel for their 鈥渋ncredible鈥� failure to disclose information to the public as ordered.) The online news site not only has become a home for the white聽nationalist alt-right, but a sewer of outright racism in its comments sections.
Kobach dismissed any concerns about the publication鈥檚 appeal to white nationalists, however.
鈥淚 think Breitbart.com appeals to anyone who is Republican or conservative in any way,鈥� Kobach told . 鈥淚t appeals to a broad spectrum of conservative readers.鈥�
