Clashing views of immigration in Virginia’s US Senate race

Republican challenger Hung Cao traffics in conspiracy theories, while Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine has been working to fix America’s broken immigration system.

Given his alignment with the hard-right faction of Donald Trump’s Republican party, it’s not surprising that Virginia US Republican Senate candidate Hung Cao traffics in harsh rhetoric and conspiracy theories on the issue of immigration. 

Instead of offering any evidence to back his spurious claims that Chinese spies are crossing the US-Mexico border and that hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are in the US stealing secrets from the universities, Cao’s campaign suggested The Dogwood do some more googling. 

“All of those things are obvious and easy to find,” Cao’s campaign told The Dogwood in a statement. 

Maybe such conspiracies are obvious on the fringes of right-wing media where Cao likes to stoke fear of immigrants, but they do not hold up to scrutiny. To take one example, there is no evidence that Chinese immigrants coming to the US are military agents of China’s government. 

Opposite Cao in this year’s race to represent Virginia in the US Senate is Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine, who has a more tangible record of trying to reform America’s broken immigration system. 

Since Kaine began his Senate career in 2013, he has voted for billions in funding for border security. Kaine has worked to pass legislation to disrupt fentanyl trafficking, and in 2018 Kaine backed bipartisan legislation to stop the shipment of illegal drugs through US borders that then-President Trump signed into law. 

Kaine has led the fight to help protect displaced Salvadorans and Hondurans from being forced to return to their countries where human rights issues and political violence make doing so dangerous. Kaine also strongly supports a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which protects undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from being deported. 

“Senator Kaine has consistently supported bipartisan immigration reform, in 2013, 2018, and 2024, that Republicans blocked,” Michael Beyer, Kaine’s Communications Director said in an email to The Dogwood. “Meanwhile, his opponent chose to play politics and opposed the strongest border security bill in decades that was backed by the Border Patrol union.”

Top of the ticket

With the border and immigration top of mind for many Americans, Kamala Harris has addressed the issue head on in her presidential campaign. 

Speaking at a rally earlier this month in Nevada, Harris touted her experience with the country’s immigration system from her time as California’s Attorney General when she prosecuted transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers. Harris is calling for comprehensive immigration reform and attacking Trump for his role in blocking a bipartisan border security bill.

“We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it takes to fix it. Comprehensive reform that includes, yes, strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship,” Harris said, according to The Washington Post. 

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Virginia’s US Senate race