Islamic State at the border: Fearful new focus of GOP campaign ads

For years, Republican opposition to immigration reform has exacted a steep political cost, the enmity of Latino voters.

But now some are pivoting to a less perilous argument for their opposition to reordering the nation’s immigration laws: It’s not about keeping out Latinos. It’s about keeping out Islamic State terrorists.

Georgia Senate candidate David Perdue laces into his Democratic opponent Michelle Nunn in a new ad:

“She’s for amnesty while terrorism experts say our border breakdown could provide an entry for groups like ISIS,” the ad says, referring to the Islamic State militant group, which was targeted by U.S. airstrikes in Syria on Tuesday.

“If a country can’t protect its borders, what can it protect?” Perdue asks as he looks into the camera. “To me the answer is crystal clear: Actually secure our borders, enforce our existing laws and, once and for all, forget amnesty.”

Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator now running in New Hampshire against Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen for her Senate seat, echoed the theme in a new ad of his own.

“Radical Islamic terrorists are threatening to cause the collapse of our country,” he says.

“President Obama and Sen. Shaheen seem confused about the nature of the threat. Not me. I want to secure the border, keep out the people who would do us harm and restore America’s leadership in the world.”

To emphasize his point, the ad shows Brown in the Army National Guard uniform in which he served for 35 years before retiring.

Contrary to the suggestions in the ads, national security officials have said they have no evidence of Islamic State plans to attack on American soil, much less their presence at the border. The point of the overseas strikes backed by Obama and members of Congress from both parties has been to destroy their capacity before they pose a threat outside the Middle East. And while there have been concerns raised about American sympathizers, they would already be in this country, not trying to cross illegally.

But that has not stopped a wave of assertions that, in political terms, serve to reinforce the GOP view that the immigration rules should not be changed until the border is secured—a vague definition that pushes legal changes out into the far distance. Proof of the political underpinnings of the new spin is that no Republican, even New Hampshire’s Brown, seems concerned at all about the Canadian border.

As Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican who represents western Arizona, tweeted Tuesday after a southern border tour: “25 miles of barbed wire fence is the only thing keeping #ISIS out of America. We must secure the border.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, both likely 2016 presidential candidates, have raised the possibility of Islamic militants easing into the U.S. from the South.

Republican Trent Franks, who represents the Phoenix suburbs, revved up his audience with specifics in a radio interview uncovered by BuzzFeed.

“It is true, that we know that ISIS is present in Ciudad Juarez or they were within the last few weeks,” Franks said in the interview. “So there’s no question that they have designs on trying to come into Arizona. The comment that I’ve made is that if unaccompanied minors can cross the border then certainly trained terrorists probably can too. It is something that is real.”

Except, according to federal officials, it is not.

Scare tactics and exaggeration have always been woven into campaign ads. The immigration debate is particularly fraught: This year, several Democrats have, like Nunn, been accused of sanctioning “amnesty” because they supported a Senate immigration bill that Republican colleagues also backed and which was in line with President Bush’s past proposals.

The Perdue commercial was particularly harsh. Besides the amnesty hit, it also accused Democrat Nunn of funding “organizations linked to terrorists” in a former job as head of the Points of Light Foundation.

The Washington Post’s respected Fact Checker blog dismantled that accusation, calling Perdue’s ad “pretty smarmy” and “utterly bogus.”

Which, of course, has not kept it off the air.

For political news and analysis, follow me on Twitter: @cathleendecker