Less than a week after blaming the state’s water crisis on “illegal aliens,” outrage merchant and Republican Texas Railroad Commission candidate Bo French has claimed “mass deportations” will lower gasoline prices.
With the general election less than 100 days away, French has ramped up his xenophobic rhetoric, tweeting out the suggestion Monday that undocumented migrants, not President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again war with Iran, are the reason why gas prices have once again climbed to $4 a gallon.
“People frequently ask me what we can do to lower prices at the pump,” French said in the post. “1) mass deportations.”
The former Tarrant County GOP chairman has made a name for himself by regularly firing off racist and offensive social media posts, including calls for the deportation of Native Americans, referring to Black voters as “chimps” and asking his online followers if they thought Jews or Muslims were a “bigger threat” to the United States.
That last remark even prompted Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a fellow Republican culture warrior, to call for French’s resignation as leader of the Tarrant County Republican Party.
As with French’s previous inflammatory posts, plenty of X users were quick to ridicule his claim.
“Yes, because everyone knows the international oil price is tightly and inversely correlated with [the] volume of undocumented people in the U.S.,” X user @HansGraff commented. “If that is so, why is it when deportations have gone up, so has the price of oil and gasoline? What’s the job you seek again?”
Houston criminal defense attorney Murray Newman gave an even more blunt response.
“I’ve never seen such an unapologetically stupid candidate for office in my lifetime,” Newman said. “How many people does the Railroad Commission Office deport every year?”
To Newman’s point, the Railroad Commission regulates the state’s oil and gas industry and has zero authority over immigration law. With a background as an energy trader, French almost certainly knows the spike in gas prices is largely due to the Trump White House’s fight with Iran.
Facts may be stubborn things, but apparently not for French. Despite his prolific posting on X, he’s skipped out on two debates against his opponent, Democrat Jon Rosenthal.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
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