Rep. Brandon Gill has lashed out at immigrants from Haiti and Somalia, suggesting their arrival in the United States serves only as a “net drain economically on the rest of the society.”
On Monday’s episode of The Benny Show, Gill was presented with a Center for Immigration graph dating back to March, indicating that 54 percent of “non-citizen” households in the U.S. originating from “top sending” countries are currently on welfare.
Outraged by the figure, host Benny Johnson ranted: “One, if we’re bringing the best and brightest, and they have to be here on welfare, why are we bringing them here at all?
“Two, shouldn’t this be illegal? If you’re coming here, shouldn’t the point be that you contribute immediately and not parasitically make our country poorer and steal from the taxpayers, of which you’ve contributed nothing?”
“You haven’t mowed a lawn in this country! Why are you entitled to welfare?” Johnson said.
Gill then chimed in.
“If you come into the United States, you are expected to become American, you are not expected to be a hyphenated American perpetually,” the Texas Republican said.
“You’re expected to adopt American culture and revere our history and adhere to the cultural norms in our civilization, which, by the way, is the whole reason why people immigrate into the United States, because our culture, I believe, in many ways is superior to other cultures across the globe.”
He continued: “We’ve got to recognize that not all cultures are equal. They’re not all equally compatible with America’s governing framework, they’re not all equally moral, they don’t all have equal dignity.
“And we have to recognize that bringing in Third World countries where some lunatic is grilling a cat in an American park where children are playing around is a culture that is incompatible with our own.”
Gill was echoing President Donald Trump’s notorious false claim from the 2024 presidential race that Haitian immigrants to the town of Springfield, Ohio, were capturing and eating the pets of local residents.
There was never any evidence for this claim. It even prompted a laugh of disbelief from his rival Kamala Harris when he mentioned it during a TV debate.
Johnson picked up his thread with more data: “Speaking of incompatibility, sometimes it’s important to, like, compare just broad numbers. The average IQ in Haiti is 68… between 67 and 68. Average IQ in America is like 105. How is that supposed to be compatible? Like, how is that supposed to work?
“Same thing with Somalia by the way. Like the average IQ in Somalia hovers around 70 and that’s the threshold for mentally-handicapped, according to most psychological theses here in this country. So like… how are you supposed to square that, congressman?”
Gill answered: “Well, that’s the problem and perhaps there’s a link between this and between the welfare usages that you see from migrants in many countries.
“When you bring in a population who largely has not really interacted with what we would consider the modern American world and the modern American economy [they] have a very hard staying afloat and the result is that they become a net drain economically on the rest of the society.”
He continued: “These are basic facts that we’ve got to recognize… Just to use one example: how does importing these populations, given the statistics which you just cited, impact American education?
“Remember these are the people who are going to school with our children, who have to be taught alongside our children. By any measure, I mean… common sense would tell you that this would decrease the quality of education for American children and that’s before we even start talking about people who are speaking foreign languages and having other kinds of cultural issues.”
The Independent has reached out to Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, the most prominent Somali-American in Congress, for comment.
Johnson has latched onto the issue of alleged benefit fraud among immigrant communities ever since another MAGA personality, Nick Shirley, posted a video on YouTube late last year in which he accused members of Minneapolis’s Somali population of defrauding the state government by running bogus day care centers.
Johnson also conducted an interview with Vice President JD Vance last month in which he pushed an old smear alleging that Rep. Omar once married her brother.
Omar has consistently denied the allegation.
Vance expressed sympathy with Johnson’s position and said the administration was looking at “legal remedies,” resulting in the small East African territory of Somaliland to pipe up on social media and offer to assist with her extradition should it be deemed necessary.
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