# Pressing Congressman Brandon Gill on Immigration | #74

An episode of [The Next Generation](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1772698742), 28 Apr 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3729041446.mp3

Congressman Brandon Gill is a representative for Texas' 26th congressional district and member of the Republican Party. Gill has gone viral numerous times for his unapologetic and direct way of taking down opponents in debates and discussion using data and receipts of their past tweets and talking points. Today, I sat down with Congressman Gill in his Congressional Office to ask him some tough questions in a quick-fire interview all about immigration in the US.Congressman Gill's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/repbrandongill/Subscribe to my Substack to support the show and join the community! https://elliotbewick.substack.com/My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elliotbewick/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elliotbewickX: https://x.com/elliotbewickABOUT THE NEXT GENERATION: In a world saturated by social media and marked by skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and ADHD among Gen Z, young people are growing up in a landscape of chaos and contradiction. While protests swell in city streets and activists hurl soup at famous artworks to demand climate action, a quieter crisis unfolds within - the mental and emotional battles faced by a generation trying to make sense of it all.The Next Generation is hosted by 20-year-old Elliot Bewick, offering a raw and honest look at the world through the eyes of those living in it. Bringing together insight from professionals and young people on the ground, this podcast isn’t here to complain or chase clout. It’s here to bend the arc of the modern world towards solutions, truth and a love for the beautiful adventure of life itself.

## Transcript

[0:00] Congressman Brandon Gill, welcome to the next generation.
[0:02] Yeah. Thanks for having me.
[0:03] What's the biggest lie the American public has been sold
[0:06] about immigration? The biggest lie about
[0:08] immigration is that mass migration from from all over the
[0:12] world makes America better off. And you can look at basic
[0:16] statistics on this welfare usage rates.
[0:20] I, I think are, are a good one. Look at the, the Somali
[0:24] population in Minnesota. And I bring that up because it's
[0:26] been in the news. It's been particularly relevant
[0:30] over the past several months. 78% of, of immigrants from
[0:35] Somali immigrants from in Minnesota are on welfare.
[0:40] And I, I think that nobody would look at that and say that that
[0:43] makes America stronger or, or more prosperous in any way.
[0:47] And yet that's kind of the constant and incessant media
[0:50] narrative that that you hear all the time.
[0:51] Why? Have we heard that narrative
[0:53] play out the way it has done the work?
[0:55] Activists will often say diversity is our strength.
[0:58] Is there any merit to that? You know, I, I think you can by
[1:02] and large the answer no, I don't think that there's a lot of
[1:05] merits that of of course, having a level of intellectual
[1:08] diversity can create a more vibrant society.
[1:11] I mean, you see that on, on college campuses where more
[1:14] differences of opinion would actually increase the quality of
[1:18] an education without without a doubt.
[1:21] But I think by and large, whenever you're talking about
[1:23] what holds a country together, what makes America more socially
[1:29] cohesive, diversity in and of itself is not a strength.
[1:35] Our our strength comes from having a, a, a shared history, a
[1:40] shared vision for where the country should go from here, a
[1:43] shared set of, of core convictions.
[1:46] I'm not talking about just, you know, political beliefs,
[1:51] although that's part of it. But instead, of course, sort of
[1:53] fundamental moral beliefs about what the what the world is, what
[1:58] is right and what is wrong. That is where our strength comes
[2:00] from. And I think mass migration does
[2:02] certainly undermine that. What do you think is the main
[2:05] thing underpinning social cohesion and functional society?
[2:09] You know, I, I'd, I'd say the primary there, there are two
[2:13] parts to that. I'd say 1 is, is a shared set of
[2:16] beliefs that I, that I was referencing.
[2:18] And you can see see that between the left right debate right now
[2:22] where, you know, we talked about it a lot, but you know, you
[2:25] can't even agree on on what, what the difference between the
[2:29] genders are or whether there are is any difference between the
[2:32] genders or whether there are more than two genders.
[2:35] Whenever you can't agree on a, a basic set of sort of factual,
[2:39] you know, basic fact pattern of, of how the world operates, It's
[2:42] very hard to even debate to go the next step and debate and
[2:46] have normative questions about how the world should be if you
[2:49] can't agree on how it is. So that's certainly part of it
[2:52] that the next step, of course, is having a a similar sort of
[2:55] moral outlook. The United States for, for most
[2:59] of its history and until the past, you know, maybe 5 or 6
[3:04] decades ago, it was by and large a, a very religious country, a
[3:08] Christian country. And most of those questions
[3:11] about morality or about the, the factual basis of the world were,
[3:15] were largely most people agreed on them.
[3:18] There are of course debates about that, slavery being one of
[3:21] them, or, you know, debates in that the 1930s about creationism
[3:27] in schools. But it on, on a core,
[3:28] fundamental level, Americans agreed.
[3:33] I think that the second part of that is I do think that there's
[3:35] an an aspect of having a shared cultural heritage that that
[3:40] bonds people together, that that is not simply an idea of what is
[3:46] right and wrong, but a sense that we are, we are one people.
[3:50] And I think that that does bring the country together.
[3:52] There's been a lot of sloganeering around Republicans,
[3:55] especially speaking out deportations and reducing
[3:58] migration. You've described the recent
[4:01] activity with Haitians as an amnesty on migration.
[4:05] What's been going on? The House voted last week to
[4:08] extend temporary protective status to Haitian the Haitian
[4:12] population in the United States. And temporary protective status
[4:16] was originally instituted back in 2010 after the Haitian
[4:20] earthquake. And it was meant to give sort of
[4:22] temporary asylum. That's where the the word
[4:25] temporary comes from for Haitians in the United States.
[4:28] And over time, it's been continually extended or re upped
[4:32] or redesignated multiple times to the point now where it's
[4:35] become essentially a de facto amnesty program.
[4:39] And the vast majority of the Haitians who fall under who are
[4:42] protected by temporary protective status did not come
[4:45] into the United States after that earthquake. 69% of them
[4:49] came into the United States during the Biden administration.
[4:52] In other words, they were just part of of the waves, the
[4:55] massive deluge of illegal immigration.
[4:59] I think that that that status should be revoked.
[5:03] It should expired. So does the Trump
[5:05] administration, But unfortunately, the House voted
[5:07] last week to extend. It and for an outsider like
[5:09] myself, I'm from the UK so very much new to working out what's
[5:13] going on in the US in regards to immigration.
[5:16] Yeah, if you. Could have one wish granted
[5:19] tomorrow in terms of policy for immigration, what would it be?
[5:23] Well, I mean, the, the, the core wish would be that the border
[5:26] remains secure, that illegal immigration remains at at 0.
[5:31] And that's effectively where it's at right now.
[5:33] Now the question that we have before us is how can we codify
[5:37] that and make it, you know, the president has done a phenomenal
[5:40] job. Most of that's been the
[5:42] executive order. We need to pass laws.
[5:44] So that would be the first thing.
[5:45] I would generally reduce legal immigration levels as well.
[5:49] But what would you? Reduce it to.
[5:51] I I would reduce it to. So right now the United States
[5:55] brings in about 1,000,000 legal immigrants a year roughly
[5:58] speaking, and about two of the of that million, and it
[6:01] fluctuates every year. Sometimes it's typically a
[6:03] little bit more, but sometimes less.
[6:06] Of those million, about 250,000 come in via what's called chain
[6:11] migration. Then you have all kinds of
[6:13] different diversity visa lotteries and all, all kinds of
[6:16] other things. I would reduce that to a level
[6:20] that's that's probably sub 50,000.
[6:22] You know, it's, it's tough to put an exact number on something
[6:25] like that. What makes you land on 50,000?
[6:27] Yeah, I, I would say if you, if you go program by program, I, I
[6:30] would eliminate chain migration which like I said is about a
[6:33] quarter million a year. I don't think that we should
[6:36] have a, a diversity visa lot. I don't think any serious
[6:39] country allow, you know basis their immigration on randomly
[6:43] selecting people from from certain countries.
[6:46] I think to the extent that we have illegal immigration system,
[6:48] it should be designed to benefit the American people.
[6:53] And you can back up a little bit and ask yourself, what is the
[6:56] purpose of an immigration system?
[6:58] The purpose of our immigration system is to benefit our people.
[7:02] And historically, American immigration was predicated on
[7:05] two key ideas. One of those was that you cannot
[7:09] be what's called a public burden.
[7:10] In other words, you can't come into the country and immediately
[7:13] hop on welfare and expect the American people to pay for your
[7:16] food and your housing, your healthcare and everything else.
[7:20] And the second was, was a concept of cultural
[7:22] assimilation. You were expected to come into
[7:24] the United States and to become fully American, not a, not a
[7:27] hyphenated American. You're expected to adopt our our
[7:30] customs, our core beliefs, Revere our heritage just like
[7:34] like we do. And we've moved away from those
[7:37] two pretty drastically. And we're at a point right now
[7:40] where the, because of mass migration, both legal and
[7:42] illegal immigration, the foreign born population is about as high
[7:46] as it's ever been in American, American history.
[7:49] And the melting pot simply isn't melting.
[7:53] They use a bit of a, a very true political platitude and and I
[7:58] think that that's a problem. So I think that part of the the
[8:01] rationale behind drastically reducing legal immigration as
[8:05] well as illegal immigration is allow that assembly allow that
[8:09] assimilation to actually occur for people to actually melt and
[8:12] and become a, you know, re cohere as an American Society.
[8:17] Do you think America has any responsibility to the rest of
[8:19] the world to let people in? By and large, no, I don't.
[8:24] I, I, I believe that America part, part of American
[8:27] sovereignty is that the American people get to determine who, who
[8:31] comes into our, who gets to be a part of the of the body politic,
[8:34] who gets to be a, a part of American Society.
[8:39] And I don't believe that we have a particular obligation to let
[8:43] any, anybody from any part of the globe to necessarily come
[8:46] in. Not refugees.
[8:49] You know, I, America's always had a, a refugee program and,
[8:54] and I think that that was done by and large out of out of all
[8:56] truism. It was a recognition that there
[8:58] are that that we are going to allow some people to come in
[9:02] and, and enjoy the fruits of, of American civilization.
[9:05] The problem with it as sort of an unlimited refugee program is
[9:10] that there are billions of people across the world who are
[9:14] living in in circumstances that that the American people can
[9:18] hardly comprehend in many ways extraordinarily poor living in,
[9:23] in persecuted societies. And you simply we simply do not
[9:26] have the ability to allow everybody from all over the
[9:30] globe to come in. So we have to make prudential
[9:32] decisions about how many people can come in so that America can
[9:36] still be the shining city on a hill.
[9:39] You know, if if you allow, you know, to put it maybe more
[9:42] practically, if you allowed, you know, an unlimited number of
[9:46] whether it's refugees or asylum seekers to come into the United
[9:49] States. American civilization does
[9:51] collapse. It cannot handle that amount in
[9:55] an Infinity immigration, to put it bluntly.
[9:59] So I think that that could be a part of it.
[10:00] But again, that's that's done on our terms.
[10:04] And the problem recently is that we've had an asylum system that
[10:08] has been so blatantly abused where you have people crossing
[10:13] the border who are claiming refugee status or asylum status
[10:17] and 90% or more of them end up getting denied because they're
[10:21] not actual refugees. They're not fleeing political
[10:23] persecution or violence. They're just looking to to make
[10:26] more money in the United States. And of course, everybody can
[10:29] understand that, but that's not the purpose of a of a refugee
[10:32] system. So I think that, you know,
[10:34] again, to the extent that we even have a refugee system in
[10:37] the United States, it needs to be extraordinarily tightly
[10:40] controlled. Would you think the Democrats
[10:42] get right about immigration? It's a really interesting
[10:48] question because this is 11 issue where I I do think that we
[10:51] are diametrically opposed in in many ways and I do think that
[10:57] the Democrats very clearly weaponize immigration for
[11:01] political benefit. How so?
[11:03] They they've talked for years. I mean, this is not a, not a
[11:06] right wing conspiracy theory, but Democrats have talked for
[11:09] decades about how demographics are destiny, about how a
[11:13] changing American demographic landscape benefits them
[11:16] politically at the expense of of Republicans.
[11:19] I mean, the, the, the, the Bible of Democrat political theory was
[11:23] a book written in the early 2000s And, and it was the thesis
[11:28] of it was, was basically that demographic change in the United
[11:34] States will create a, a permanent majority, as we call
[11:36] the, the, the emerging Democratic majority.
[11:40] And Democrats have kind of played that out politically for
[11:43] a long time. You've heard leaders from Chuck
[11:45] Schumer to about every Democrat in the House talk about how we
[11:47] need more immigration, we need amnesty.
[11:50] We need to give illegal aliens the right to vote, give local
[11:53] jurisdiction, left wing jurisdictions in the United
[11:55] States, giving illegal aliens voting rights.
[11:59] And they've been very clear that that is their their path to, to
[12:03] an electoral majority. So I think that they're
[12:05] politically incentivized. Open up our borders, allow as
[12:08] many illegal aliens into our country as possible, allow as
[12:12] much legal immigration as they possibly can into our country
[12:16] with the hopes that that those people will be future perpetual
[12:19] Democratic voters. The the second aspect of that is
[12:24] whenever you, whenever you have open borders, illegal aliens
[12:26] come into the country and they they tend to congregate in
[12:29] sanctuary cities or sanctuary states, which tend to of course,
[12:33] be Democrat cities and states. Whenever we take the census,
[12:38] every 10 years, the census counts the number of people in a
[12:41] jurisdiction, not the number of citizens.
[12:44] So every 10 years, whenever we redistrict and you have
[12:47] congressional apportionment, which determines how many
[12:49] congressmen each state gets, blue states get far more
[12:53] representation than they otherwise would at the expense
[12:56] of red states because of illegal immigration.
[12:59] So you, there have been multiple studies that on net blue states
[13:02] probably get three to five additional Democrat congressman
[13:07] in, in Washington because of illegal immigration.
[13:10] And that number is only going to get higher because of the past
[13:12] four years of of open borders from 2020 to 2024, which
[13:17] happened after the last census. Congressman, thank you for your
[13:20] time. If you could give the American
[13:22] public one fact about immigration, to leave them
[13:25] within the next 30 seconds, would it be?
[13:28] One fact about immigration, you know, I, I would say that I, I
[13:35] believe it's about 55% of non citizen immigrant households are
[13:43] on welfare in the United States. And I think that that's an
[13:45] astounding number that, that most Americans find defensive.
[13:50] And I think that that's something that that would that
[13:53] most people need to know about.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.