Exclusive: MAGA’s immigrant enforcer
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Ohio GOP Senate nominee Bernie Moreno gives a stump speech in Lorain County. Photo: Stef Kight/Axios
WILMINGTON, Ohio — Colombian-born Bernie Moreno came to the U.S. at the age of 5. Now the Ohio GOP Senate nominee wants legal immigrants like himself to learn English and block them from government benefits for their first 10 years in the U.S.
Why it matters: The most expensive congressional race this fall stars an immigrant who could deliver a Senate GOP majority — while boosting party efforts to pass harsher immigration laws.
- Moreno's opponent is Ohio's last statewide elected Democrat, Sen. Sherrod Brown, the powerful Banking chairman who retains a 5-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
- He's trying to tap into voters' concerns about migrants and fentanyl coming across the border, issues that could help determine which party controls the Senate in 2025.
Zoom in: "We're not going to give you the citizenship test in any other language, but English," Moreno told Axios in an exclusive interview last week.
- Immigration was central to Moreno's pitch to voters at nearly every campaign stop the GOP candidate made as Axios shadowed him for two days of a week-long bus tour.
- "They learn the language, like I did. They assimilate, like I did. They understand the culture, like I did," he told supporters at a local coffee shop in Wilmington, about 50 miles northwest of Cincinnati.
- "And when they're ready, they raise their hand and swear allegiance to United States of America, like I did when I was 18 years old."
Zoom out: Moreno wants to bar people from asylum — for life — if they illegally cross the U.S. border or do not first apply for protection in a country they traveled through.
- Even if they follow those rules, he would want to force migrants to wait outside the U.S. until their asylum cases are decided.
- He wants to finish building former President Trump's border wall and get Mexico to agree to work with the U.S. military to "obliterate and wipe out the drug cartels."
Between the lines: Republicans tanked a bipartisan Senate border package at Trump's behest earlier this year. It included asylum restrictions and a big boost to border security resources.
- Brown "voted for the deal and successfully worked with Republicans to pass legislation to stop fentanyl from coming over the Southern border," campaign spokesperson Eliza Green told Axios.
The bottom line: Taking their cues from Trump, Republicans have embraced increasingly strict stances on immigration and drug trafficking.
- In his first term, Trump rolled out a kind of wealth-and-health test for prospective immigrants, though it faced numerous setbacks.
- If he's re-elected, Trump has even more aggressive plans to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history, ideologically screen prospective immigrants, impose a naval blockade to target drug smugglers and restrict access to asylum.
