Trump’s Own People Are Calling Bullshit on the White Nationalist Invasion Conspiracy Theory

A Trump appointed judge in Texas is the latest to undermine the claim of an “invasion” to invoke the Alien Enemies Act being used to whisk immigrants away to an El Salvadoran torture prison.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez ruled Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was ILLEGAL. The Trump-appointed judge found that the administration’s assertion that the United States is being “invaded” does not match the factual reality of the definition under the Act and barred the detention and removal of the group of Venezuelan migrants who are being held at a facility in southern Texas under the Act. The White House is arguing that a Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua, constitutes a state-sponsored military invasion. This extraordinary claim has little factual support and has been debunked not only in court but by Trump’s own intelligence community.

Joining several other decisions against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, Judge Rodriguez, noted that "the plain, ordinary meaning of 'invasion' was an entry into the nation’s territory by a military force or an organized, armed force, with the purpose of conquering or obtaining control over territory.” A definition that the administration's weak assertions could not meet.

Beyond the common sense pointing to the absurdity of this rationale, Trump’s own National Intelligence Council (NIC) denied the invasion claim in a secret report issued at the beginning of April. Led by none other than Tulsi Gabbard, the National Intelligence Council pulls from 18 different intelligence agencies throughout the federal government. “The finding was nearly unanimous among the U.S. intelligence agencies,” the Washington Post reported. “[W]ith the exception of the FBI, which assessed a moderate level of cooperation between the gang and the Venezuelan government, two people familiar with the matter said.” The NIC’s analysis built on similar assessments from the American intelligence agencies in late February. A document obtained by the New York Times “summarized the shared judgment of the nation’s spy agencies that the gang was not controlled by the Venezuelan government.” Moreover, the claims of gang membership are equally absurd, with some 90% of those sent to the El Salvadoran torture prison as “invaders” under the Act have no prior criminal history.

The facts matter here because the administration is using the language of “invasion” to justify sending our law-abiding immigrant neighbors to prison indefinitely without even the ability to see the inside of a courtroom. The fact that no such invasion exists makes the horrors done in the name of this fiction exponentially worse.

Expanded Use of the White Nationalist Invasion Lie in the Mainstream

But it's not just the Aliens and Enemies Act. The invasion conspiracy theory is being deployed to justify the administration's sweeping nativist agenda and a broader set of authoritarian executive actions. Trump is currently employing the invasion lie to deploy active military onto US soil along the Southern border under a National Emergency declaration. Allegedly in an effrot to protect the American people from the “invasion” is also the adminisatrion’s justification for the Executive Order that illustrates a broder nativist agenda, including the national registry, ending the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and attacking nonprofits like HIAS and Catholic Charities for their work helping to resettle immigrants and refugees. The administration used the invasion lie in a new EO issued on Monday to pursue their threats of withholding federal funds to critical programs and to prosecute Democratic officials in so-called sanctuary cities. But unlike with the Aliens and Enemies Act, the White House’s argument is much broader with these other EOs. The “invasion” isn’t described with any specific force or nation. Instead, they argue that the relative number of immigrants who entered the United States constitutes an invading force, which is generally described as directed by the Biden administration.

Aligned behind Trump, the American right has been socializing the bigoted conspiracy theory that immigrants constitute a literal invasion for the last several years to justify these exact authoritarian maneuvers. A decade ago, the fiction that immigrants were an invading force set on replacing the “real” American people was confined to the white nationalist fringes of American politics. Trump opened the door for this white nationalist conspiracy theory to march into the mainstream following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. During his first term, Trump would occasionally employ the invasion lie to justify his actions, like when he invoked a National Emergency in 2019 to usurp the power of Congress to fund his border wall. His campaign also began to run thousands of Facebook ads in 2018 and 2019, pushing the invasion rhetoric. By the summer of 2021, the once ‘moderate’ leaders inside the party, like former Gang of Eight member Sen. Lindsey Graham and then-third ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik, began pushing the conspiracy theory. By CPAC 2022, TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk was making use of the invasion lie as a litmus test for Republicans in the upcoming midterms. The white nationalist conspiracy theory then became ubiquitous throughout the American right. While controlling the majority in the House in 2023, over 165 Members of Congress had invoked the lie in their official capacity. In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton officially declared they were being invaded to claim war powers under the Constitution (a day-one Trump EO affirmed). It then became a central feature in Republicans' 2024 campaigns before Trump instituted the white nationalist conspiracy theory as official White House policy.

Inspiring Deadly Hate and Authoritarianism

As Trump, elected Republicans, and leading figures on the American right were getting acquainted with the white nationalist conspiracy theory, domestic terrorists were being inspired by its ideas to murder dozens of our fellow Americans. Before it was the baseless policy justification for placing immigrants into indefinite detention in a foreign country without a trial, it was scrawled on the manifestos of mass shooters. The white nationalist who killed 11 in Pittsburgh in 2018, the white nationalist who killed 23 in El Paso in 2019, and the white nationalist who killed 10 in Buffalo in 2022, like the White House claims as its official position, believed that immigration is equivalent to an invasion. In fact, in the Texas courtroom where the El Paso murderer was being sentenced, his lawyer made the direct connection, “While Patrick claimed in his manifesto that his views predated the then-President (Donald Trump) and that political figures were not to blame, he also explicitly stated the attack was a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas, echoing the language used by political figures,” defense attorney Joe Spencer told the court. “Indeed, Patrick believed he was acting in the direction of the president at the time, seeing it as his duty to stop the invasion because that’s what he believed the president was telling him.”

For the deadly terrorists, the invasion conspiracy theory is about hate. It may be the same for those in positions of power who espouse the hateful conspiracy theory. But for the electeds, it is also about power. Not just using the politics of fear of invaders to get elected, but to enact authoritarian measures. The use of the invasion conspiracy theory is currently being weaponized in a baseless lie about Tren de Aragua to invoke the Aliens and Enemies Act to target Venezuelan immigrants with authoritarian measures. But it won’t stop there. Trump has already publicly fantasized about adding US citizens to the mix. Not to mention the broader use of the invision lie already in use.

We should take Trump and his allies at their word, that they believe that our immigrant neighbors are actually part of an organized military force set to kill and seize land, and expect them to act accordingly. Under this nativist delusion of active war, mothers, neighbors, and coworkers become dangerous invaders. Holding know your rights trainings, falling in love, or even just failing to contribute to the mass deportation effort could be criminalized for US citizens. The indiscriminate round-ups, turning every government official into an immigration agent, or any other authoritarian measure, becomes justified when immigrants are labeled as military combatants. In their conspiracy theory, we are at war with our neighbors, which would have horrifying and untold consequences. It's an ugly dystopian fiction, but it is the one that is guiding the policy actions of the White House.

Belief in the Invasion Lie

While the court's rejection and the NIC reports should pop the delusional fiction of the White House’s make-believe invasion, the fact that it's even a question for them to answer is evidence of how far this deadly white nationalist conspiracy theory has permeated mainstream political thought. New polling from PRRI reveals good news and bad news about the permeation of the invasion theory among the public.

The good news, a solid majority of Americans (64%) disagree with the invasion lie. There also appears to be a slight decline since 2019, when PRRI began asking the question. The largest drop is among Democrats from 20% to 12%. While still deeply concerning, given the deadly potential of this belief, the steady or slight decline in belief suggests that the conspiracy theory is not a persuasive one. Over this same period, the American right leaned in heavily into adopting this language, but we are not seeing an overall shift in support.

The bad news, 60% of Republicans believe a version of this white nationalist lie. So, despite what the intelligence officials and the courts say, there is still a powerful incentive inside the Republican Party to continue to advance the deadly lie.

The threat of the government using white nationalist propaganda to turn towards authoritarianism isn’t a hypothetical warning about a future to come. It's happening. And it's happening now. The court and intelligence are still willing to tell the truth albeit in a small and quiet way. But for how much longer. The danger has grown as the invasion conspiracy theory has moved from the margins to the mainstream. Now we risk it becoming our lived reality, not because the threat from our immigrant neighbors is real but because the government behaves like we are at war with them.