Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., arrives for the House Republican Conference caucus meeting in the U.S. Capitol on June 4, 2024. | Source: Bill Clark / Getty
Suspected white supremacist and Republican Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins was shamed on Wednesday into deleting a racist social media post about Haitians, prompting Democratic Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford to call out his “hatred” while also moving for a formal censure against the conservative lawmaker.
In case you missed it, Higgins dug deep in his bag of racism when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, disparaging remarks about Haitians in the U.S. while trying to lend credence to a widely debunked racist conspiracy theory championed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate JD Vance.
Higgins’ post came one day after a Haitian group filed a criminal complaint against Trump and Vance for helping to spread the nonsensical lie that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing residents’ pets and eating them.
“Lol. These Haitians are wild,” Higgins wrote in the post. “Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the Western hemisphere, cults, splatstick gangsters… but damn if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP.”
But Higgins wasn’t done.
“All these thugs better get their minds right and their ass out of our country before January 20,” Higgins dog-whistled in the post while referencing the date of the presidential inauguration next year.
Higgins ultimately deleted the racist tweet, but not before it was preserved via screenshots that quickly went viral on social media.
It was in that context that Horsford, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, on the House floor on Wednesday, called for Higgins to be formally censured.
“I would hope that every member of this body understands that no person, particularly those that contribute to communities, that are entrepreneurial, who give to our communities by being nurses and first responders and teachers – that those individuals, those children, no longer have to live in fear or intimidation because of any words and posts that come from members of this body,” Horsford said. “It is time to end hate and the rhetoric of hate and it is not becoming on any member to continue to push this type of rhetoric on any platform, let alone from the House of Representatives.”
Horsford later expounded on his intentions to censure Higgins.
“Today, Representative Clay Higgins used his official account on X to publicly spew hatred, fear, and intolerance against Haitians and Haitian Americans in an overtly racist post. Referring to Haiti as the ‘nastiest country in the western hemisphere,’ and denigrating Haitians with vile and demeaning terms goes against a foundational principle about our country: that America is a nation of immigrants where all are welcome,” Horford said in a statement sent to NewsOne. “We can only hope and pray that the misinformation and racist rhetoric spewed by former President Donald Trump, Senator JD Vance, Rep. Higgins, and other right wing MAGA extremists, do not lead to violence in any Haitian or immigrant community.”
Horsford added: “Every member of Congress must be clear that we need to eliminate hate in all its forms. It is time to turn the page on this pattern of denigrating and villainizing immigrants for political gain. Today, we have introduced a privileged resolution to censure Rep. Higgins and to make clear that bigotry and racism from a member of Congress is unacceptable.”
To be sure, this wasn’t Higgins’ first racist rodeo, particularly on social media.
Notably, back in 2017, Higgins wrote a Facebook post in which he called for the slaughter of “radicalized” Muslims. “Hunt them, identify them, and kill them,” he wrote. “Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all,” he wrote.
This is America.
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