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‘They Savor It’: Dem Rep. Hank Johnson Claims Republicans ‘Would Gladly’ Bring Slavery Back

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Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia claimed Republicans “would gladly” see a return to slavery by exploiting migrants during a Wednesday hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

“Republicans like to see them lined up at the border because they know that that’s a stream of labor ready to be exploited with cheap, if any, compensation,” Johnson said during the hearing as the committee discussed HR 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023. (RELATED: Dem Rep: Without Illegal Immigrants, ‘Nobody’ Would Be ‘Cleaning Up In The Hospitals’)

The legislation requires the use of E-Verify, an electronic employment eligibility verification system, requires the completion of the wall on the border, prohibits asylum claims for those who do not arrive at ports of entry and expands options for deporting those ordered to leave the country.

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“I mean, if you could get back to slavery, you would gladly do so, but if you could pay people a dollar an hour, you would settle for that, and that’s, that’s the race to the bottom that we have with immigrants lined up at the border trying to get in and go to work,” Johnson continued. “And my Republican friends talk about how they don’t like that — how it’s a crisis — but yet they savor it.”

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered over 1.2 million illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal year 2023, 2,378,944 encounters in fiscal year 2022 and 1,734,686 in fiscal year 2021. About 600,000 migrants evaded CBP in fiscal year 2022, Fox News reported.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that migrant processing centers in seven sectors on the southern border are over capacity.

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