The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Stephen Miller drops brutal price tag on bogus asylum claims: Cancer care for Americans

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BS BULLETIN:

  • Stephen Miller says processing a single fraudulent asylum claim can cost taxpayers as much as providing cancer treatment to an American child.
  • The White House deputy chief of staff accused Democrats of encouraging migrants to abuse the asylum system.
  • His argument instantly caught fire online: Stop talking about illegal immigration as an abstraction and show Americans what their money could be buying instead.

Stephen Miller just found a way to explain the cost of illegal immigration that fits into about 20 seconds, and Republicans might want to save the tape.

During an appearance Friday night with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Miller attacked what he described as fraudulent asylum claims encouraged by Democrats.

Then came the line that exploded online. “The cost of adjudicating even one fake asylum claim is the same cost as providing free cancer treatment to one American citizen with pediatric cancer,” Miller said. “Every single fraud they abet, we could provide free cancer care to one American citizen.”

That is one heck of a way to frame the argument.

Rather than discussing illegal immigration through incomprehensible billion-dollar government spending figures, Miller reduced it to a choice voters can instantly understand: What else could that money have paid for?

The Trump administration has increasingly been making the same broader argument as it tightens immigration enforcement — that illegal immigration imposes costs on Americans through government services, benefits and the financial system. Earlier this month, the White House said the administration had terminated taxpayer-funded benefits for more than 1.4 million illegal immigrants it said were improperly receiving public assistance.

Miller has also pushed the administration to attack the financial incentives for remaining in the country illegally. Last month, he said the administration was moving to restrict illegal immigrants’ access to banking services, arguing that cutting access to credit cards, bank accounts and direct deposits could become a “massive engine for deportation.”

But Friday’s cancer-care comparison may be far more politically potent.

The dollar amount behind Miller’s specific comparison wasn’t substantiated in the coverage reviewed by The Daily BS, so voters can decide for themselves how literally to take his math.

The political message, however, is impossible to miss. Every government dollar has another place it could have gone. And Miller wants Republicans asking voters exactly who should come first.

MY QUICK TAKE

Washington can make a trillion dollars sound like Monopoly money. Miller made the argument one sick American kid versus one bogus asylum claim.

You may want to check the math before printing the bumper sticker — but as political messaging goes, that one leaves a mark.

DBS WIRE SOURCES

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