Former Trump official who led Republican border tour works for a hate group

When former Trump administration official Mark Morgan accompanied House Republicans on a recent trip to the U.S-Mexico border on March 30, he did so in his capacity as a leader of an anti-immigration hate group.

Morgan served as the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2019 until President Joe Biden took office. On Feb. 10, 2021, the anti-immigration group Federation for American Immigration Reform, which goes by the acronym FAIR, announced that they had hired Morgan. FAIR said Morgan would be serving as a “Senior Fellow” for the organization and also as a spokesperson.

Bob Dane, the group’s executive director, said in a press release that hiring Morgan would allow the group to highlight Biden policies it disagrees with. “Mark is the right guy, at the right time, in the right place,” Dane noted.

Then, late in March, Morgan traveled to the border with a group of House Republicans to attack Biden’s immigration policies and to continue the Republican attempt to pull down Biden’s positive approval ratings by highlighting problems at the border.

As part of that mission, FAIR hosted a video stream of Morgan’s trip, promoting it on their Facebook and Twitter accounts to the more than 2.7 million followers the group has amassed on those platforms. FAIR also posted a video of the trip to its YouTube account.

FAIR has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, who has documented the group’s longstanding ties to white nationalism.

John Tanton, who founded the group and serves as board member, wrote in 1986 that “whites see their power and control over their lives declining” and advocated for a “European-American majority” which he saw as necessary for “European-American society and culture to persist.”

Tanton operated a publishing company called Social Contract Press, which republished the notorious anti-immigrant novel “The Camp of Saints.” The book describes “swarthy hordes” of Indian immigrants overrunning France and describes immigrants as “monsters.”

For nearly 10 years, FAIR took more than $1.2 million in grants from the pro-eugenics Pioneer Fund.

Morgan, in his role with the Trump administration, has made statements that echo FAIR’s attacks on migrants.

In a 2019 appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Morgan described child migrants as future members of the MS-13 gang, who has an especially brutal track record.

“I’ve been to the detention facilities where I’ve walked up to these individuals that are ‘so-called minors,'” Morgan said, “Seventeen or under, and I’ve looked at them and I’ve looked at their eyes, Tucker, and I’ve said that is a soon-to-be MS-13 gang member.”

Like FAIR, Morgan was a strong advocate for Trump’s border wall project. During the 2020 campaign, in his capacity as a federal official, Morgan attacked Biden for opposing the wall and characterized it as a positive “message to the cartels.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.