Rush Limbaugh outlined a bizarre conspiracy theory in response to reports that President Obama will overhaul the enforcement of the nation's immigration laws, suggesting that undocumented immigrants had prior knowledge of the plan and enticed parentless migrant children across the border in hopes of adopting them as a means to obtaining legal status under the new enforcement scheme.
On November 13, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration would be revamping its immigration enforcement philosophy and may use prosecutorial discretion to protect “up to five million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation.” The new enforcement plan would “allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families and sent away.”
Radio host Rush Limbaugh tied the plan to the influx of migrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border from Central America earlier this year, suggesting the enforcement plan and the influx were part of a complex amnesty scheme that would grant legal status to the children, adoptive parents, and the biological parents of the children still residing abroad.
His theory breaks down as follows:
Rush Conspiracy Part 1: Every Undocumented Immigrant In America Had Advance Knowledge Of Obama's Enforcement Plan
According to Limbaugh, the wave of child migrants fleeing across the U.S. border away from Central American violence was a premeditated act orchestrated in part by undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who knew about Obama's plan. “That would explain why their parents put them on the train,” said Limbaugh. “This is not an accident ... Somebody set this up.” He elaborated on his theory further (emphasis added):
LIMBAUGH: Now we know why we have had this flood of illegal alien children for the last year. Every illegal alien in the US must have known this was coming, and they wanted to get their own anchor baby even if they had to adopt one.
The surge in child migrants travelling alone from Central America was in full swing in December 2012. According to reports, only people who have been living in the U.S. for at least 5 years would likely be eligible for deferred deportation and legal status (Other reports indicate the plan might only apply for those who have been in the country at least ten years).
Rush Conspiracy Part 2: The Obama Administration Painstakingly Placed Migrant Children With Undocumented Immigrant Adoptive Parents
Over the summer, some in right-wing media raised fears that the Obama administration “won't say where illegal immigrant children are going” once they arrive in the United States. Limbaugh's conspiracy pulls away the curtain -- Obama has been pairing migrant children with undocumented immigrant families, an act which, under Limbaugh's version of Obama's enforcement plan, will magically grant legal status to each child's adoptive parents (emphasis added):
LIMBAUGH: Every illegal alien in the US must have known this was coming, and they wanted to get their own anchor baby even if they had to adopt one. And the administration did all they could to facilitate them, so they put these kids in the families of illegal immigrants.
However, the known details about Obama's proposed plan would only grant protections to the undocumented parents of “children who are American citizens or legal residents,” which would not include recent undocumented migrants.
Rush Conspiracy Part 3: Obama Planned For Migrant Children To Be “Anchor Babies” For Both Undocumented Adoptive Parents And Biological Parents Abroad
Limbaugh concluded his theory by asserting that the migrant children being placed by the Obama administration will serve as “anchor babies” (an unsurprisingly derogatory word choice from Limbaugh) that will grant double amnesty to two sets of parents.
The act of placing the migrant children with undocumented families throughout the United States “legalizes them,” according to Limbaugh. “And then the parents of these children in Central America are next.”
LIMBAUGH: Every illegal alien in the US must have known this was coming, and they wanted to get their own anchor baby even if they had to adopt one. And the administration did all they could to facilitate them, so they put these kids in the families of illegal immigrants, which legalizes them, and then their parents down in Central America, El Salvador, Nicaragua, wherever, they're next. All the while, pretending they were trying to stop the flood. All the while the regime was pretending to try to get a handle on this and stop this. All the while pretending to try to stop this massive migration of illegal migrant minor children. They didn't stop it, they facilitated it.
It's important to note that Limbaugh didn't come by this theory ad hoc. The radio host has conceptualized Obama's immigration action as the culmination of a much deeper conspiracy centered on a massive racial social engineering project: the demise of America's white power structure. Just last summer, Limbaugh was already suggesting the influx of child migrants was orchestrated by leftists in an effort to “wrest control of this country” from a white majority.