The most expensive Senate race this year stars MAGA’s immigration enforcer

WILMINGTON, Ohio — Colombian-born Bernie Moreno came to the U.S. at age 5. Now the Ohio GOP candidate for Senate wants to require legal immigrants like himself to learn English and exclude them from government benefits for their first 10 years in the U.S.

Why it’s important: The most expensive congressional race this fall will hinge on an immigrant who could deliver a majority to Republicans in the Senate while bolstering the party’s efforts to pass stricter immigration laws.

• Moreno’s opponent is Ohio’s last elected Democrat in the state, Sen. Sherrod Brown, the powerful banking industry chairman who holds a 5-point lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
• He is trying to play on voters’ concerns about migrants and fentanyl crossing the border, issues that could determine which party takes control of the Senate in 2025.

Zoom in: “We are not going to administer the integration test in another language, but in English,” Moreno said in an exclusive interview with Axios last week.

• Immigration was at the center of Moreno’s speech to voters at nearly every GOP candidate’s campaign rally, as Axios followed him on two days of a weeklong bus tour.
• “They’re learning the language, just like me. They’re assimilating, just like me. They’re understanding the culture, just like me,” he told his supporters at a local coffee shop in Wilmington, about 50 miles northwest of Cincinnati.
• “And when they are ready, they raise their hands and pledge allegiance to the United States of America, like I did when I was 18 years old.”

Zoom out: Moreno wants to ban people from seeking asylum for life if they cross the US border illegally or do not first apply for protection in the country they traveled through.

• Even if they follow those rules, he wants to force migrants to wait outside the U.S. until their asylum applications are decided.
• He wants to complete construction of former President Trump’s border wall and ensure that Mexico agrees to work with the US military to “eradicate and wipe out the drug cartels.”

Between the lines: Republicans earlier this year botched a bipartisan Senate border package requested by Trump that included asylum restrictions and a major boost to border security funding.

• Brown “voted for the deal and worked successfully with Republicans to pass legislation banning the importation of fentanyl across the southern border,” campaign spokesperson Eliza Green told Axios.

The heart of the matter:Following Trump’s lead, Republicans are taking increasingly tougher stances on immigration and drug trafficking.

• During his first term, Trump instituted a kind of wealth and health test for potential immigrants, but the test was met with widespread setbacks.
• If re-elected, Trump has even more aggressive plans, including the largest deportation in U.S. history, ideological screening of potential immigrants, a naval blockade to crack down on drug traffickers, and restrictions on access to asylum.