Right-wing media are using the invasion of Ukraine to frame migration at the U.S. southern border as an “invasion” while also decrying the supposed lack of federal money and media attention given to the issue.

Right-wing media often use the topic of immigration to spew bigotry, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. Currently, they are capitalizing on the Ukraine invasion to draw a nonsensical comparison to the situation at the United States’ southern border, labeling migration as “invasion” and arguing for money and troops to be redirected to the border. 

Though there are serious concerns about waste and misuse of Department of Homeland Security funds, the U.S. government still gives billions each year to homeland security and border infrastructure. In 2021, the House Appropriations Committee allocated 50.72 billion in discretionary funding for homeland security, including 14.6 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Additionally, 171 million dollars were allocated to the funding of new positions for CBP. For 2022, both the House and the Senate have each released appropriations bills giving billions of dollars in funding to CBP.  

The situation at the southern border cannot be described as an “invasion” in any way that is truthful or comparable to the situation in Ukraine. In February, only 22% of those taken into Border Patrol custody were released to border shelters and around 61% of migrants faced expulsion or deportation. Speaking to the Arizona Capitol Times, Joe Garcia, the executive director of Chicanos Por La Causa Action Fund, talked about the danger of using the word invasion in relation to immigration:

But right-wing media are still using the war in Ukraine to fearmonger about an “invasion” at the southern border:

• On the February 25 edition of One America News Network’s Real America with Dan Ball, former national security adviser Michael Flynn asked the viewers to think about what are the “national security interests” of the U.S. when it comes to the “situation in Europe and ... Ukraine. I know we have a severe national security crisis on our southern border where we have almost 3 million or maybe north of 3 million people in the last year from 151 countries that have invaded illegally our country.” 
• Former Sinclair political analyst Boris Epshteyn appeared on the March 10 edition of War Room: Pandemic and argued that the Trump supporters, the “American people” and the “American military” are worried about the “southern border of the United States of America where there is an invasion going on as we speak.” 
• OAN host Dan Ball complained on the March 15 edition of Real America with Dan Ball that the “swamp creatures” are able to “move heaven and Earth … and get $14 billion ready to go and sent overseas to help out when we can't even secure our southern border.”
• On the March 17 edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham invited former senior adviser to then-President Donald Trump Stephen Miller to talk about Biden administration's policy on the southern border. Miller claimed that the “endless” talk about Ukraine provided an opportunity for the White House to “take focus off of our own southern border” where there is currently a “narco war happening on the other side.”  
• Fox News host Tucker Carlson complained that while we’re sending “thousands of American troops and billions in American military hardware to Eastern Europe,” “our military could seal the border with Mexico in days. That would save American lives, it would restore order and it would end the invasion.”
• On the March 17 edition of OAN's In Focus, host Stephanie Hamill invited on Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to talk about the “ongoing disaster at our border.” Greene complained that American media outlets are paying too much attention to Ukraine and not enough to the fact that “our country is being invaded every single day” at the southern border.