Here’s the full story on Lindsey Graham’s weird comments about tens of thousands Brazilians with Gucci bags invading Connecticut:
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, an outspoken critic of President Biden’s immigration policies, said affluent Brazilians were illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and heading to Connecticut “wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags.”
In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Graham (R-S.C.) was critical of the administration’s order to halt large-scale immigration arrests at job sites, with plans for a new approach to target employers who pay substandard wages and engage in exploitative labor practices.
“Now, what [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas did today, calling off all the raids of worksite, is going to be another incentive for people to come, because the word is out,” Graham said. “You come, you claim asylum, you never leave. The policy choices of Biden are all over the world now.”
The senator, who recently visited the border in Arizona, added: “We had 40,000 Brazilians come through the Yuma Sector alone headed for Connecticut wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags. This is not economic migration anymore.”
“People see an open America,” he continued. “They’re taking advantage of us. And it won’t be long before a terrorist gets in this crowd.”
In an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, Graham elaborated on his comments.
“Usually when you go to the border, you see people who are dressed really haggardly and who look like they’ve been through hell,” he said. “This time at Yuma, there were dozens that looked like they were checking into a hotel — and smartly dressed.”
“This is something new,” he added. “I would advise the Biden administration to do what the Obama administration did and fly them back.”
Graham said Connecticut was a destination, along with two other states that he could not remember based on what a Border Patrol agent told him about the growing Brazilian communities.
Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Graham, had defended the senator’s comments, citing what he saw during his recent trip to the border and news reports about Brazilian immigrants. Bishop also provided photographs of luggage and shoes taken at the border.
“They have had thousands of Brazilians coming through there,” he said. “As Senator Graham noted in Yuma, the luggage was nicer than his own.”
None of the luggage in the photos provided to The Post appeared to be Gucci. The most obvious clothing in the photos was a pair of fairly clean Puma tennis shoes without shoelaces.
He’s completed the metamorphosis. He is no longer just a Trump sycophant. He’s a full Trump clone.