Buchanan said immigration will cause the "complete balkanization of America," create "a giant Kosovo in the Southwest"

Summary: On MSNBC's Hardball and Scarborough Country, Pat Buchanan claimed that the number of immigrants entering the United States will cause the "balkanization of America" and will create "a giant Kosovo in the Southwest." Buchanan's warning that the Southwest "is going to secede" echoed claims by other conservative commentators that some Hispanics want to "reconquer" parts of the United States that were lost during the Mexican-American war.

On the June 5 editions of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and Scarborough Country, MSNBC political analyst and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan claimed that the number of immigrants entering the United States will cause the "complete balkanization of America" and will create "a giant Kosovo in the Southwest." On Hardball, Buchanan claimed that "what's coming is the complete balkanization of America" whereby the United States will be separated "by ethnicity and culture, and language, and every other way" and will not be "like the country you and I grew up in," which was "monocultural." Similarly, on Scarborough Country, Buchanan claimed: "You're going to have a giant Kosovo in the Southwest, which de facto is going to secede from this country."

Buchanan's warning that the Southwest "is going to secede" echoed claims by other conservative commentators that some Hispanics want to "reconquer" parts of the United States that were lost during the Mexican-American war.

As Media Matters for America has previously noted, during the May 15 edition of Hardball, Buchanan claimed that the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States is "not immigration" but "an invasion" that is "coming not only from Mexico," but "from the whole world." Further, Media Matters noted that on the May 1 edition of Scarborough Country, Buchanan said that a Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is "a provocation and an insult" and that immigrants are "not welcome to come here and insult the symbols of our country, and that's what these outsiders have done."

From the June 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Is a worst-case scenario for you, Pat, is that the country basically becomes largely Hispanic and gay?

[laughter]

BUCHANAN: Well, I think I'd -- no. Here's the thing. My feeling is --

MATTHEWS: No, isn't that the worst case scenario? I'm serious.

BUCHANAN: Well, the worst case scenario --

MATTHEWS: When you go to bed at night, isn't that what you worry about?

BUCHANAN: I think what's coming is the complete balkanization of America, and I'm afraid it's going to be by ethnicity and culture, and language, and every other way. And we're going to be like the Balkans, only we've got a much larger and more prosperous country. And so, then, it's not like the country you and I grew up in, Chris, whereby --

MATTHEWS: It's already not that.

BUCHANAN: -- we were monocultural. We were monocultural.

MATTHEWS: Well, it's already not that.

From the June 5 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, which also featured Juan Hernandez, former adviser to Mexican President Vicente Fox:

BUCHANAN: But the point is, Joe, I don't care about the Republican Party. I don't care about politics. I do care about this country.

HERNANDEZ: Oh.

BUCHANAN: You can't absorb -- you cannot absorb 40 to 60 million more people. You're going to have a giant Kosovo in the Southwest, which de facto is going to secede from this country, if anybody any longer cares about our country, rather than an economy.

—K.D.