Bill Maher predicts the Democrats will lose the election badly if they keep on the way they are going with immigration.
The comedian is relentlessly gloomy about President Joe Biden's reelection chances due to perceptions of his age and the millions crossing the border.
Maher compared last week's European Union elections, where far-right parties made huge gains, to the US Election on November 5.
Immigration wasn't the only reason for the lurch to the right, particularly in Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and Italy, but it was a major campaign point.
'Voters again for the European Parliament said we do not like this much immigration,' Maher said on his Real Time show on HBO.
Bill Maher predicts the Democrats will lose the election badly if they keep on the way they are going with immigration
Volunteers distribute food to migrants who crossed into the US from Mexico in Jacumba Hot Springs, California
Maher noted Italian Prime MinisterGiorgia Meloni was often called a fascist for some of her far-right positions, but he argued moderate parties were enabling her.
'If liberals insist that enforcing borders is a job only fascists will do, then voters will hire fascists to do what liberals won't,' he said, quoting a 2019 article in The Atlantic.
'Voters keep saying over and over again we are not comfortable with this level of immigration. I understand why. It doesn't make you a racist to say that.'
Maher did not specify why voters were uncomfortable with immigration, other than that it wasn't solely due to racism.
He argued the problem Democrats had with the issue was summed up bySenator Alex Padilla's response to Biden's executive order limiting border crossings.
'By reviving Trump's asylum ban, Biden has undermined American values,' he quoted theCalifornia lawmaker as saying.
'And then they all stand back and go, "We don't want to be called a racist. So we will not make a move on to immigration".'
Maher noted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (pictured with Joe Biden at the G7 meeting on Thursday) was often called a fascist for some of her far-right positions, but he argued moderate parties were enabling her
Maher argued this was exactly the wrong response, as it misjudged the present mood of American voters.
'It's going to get them f**ked on election day. It's happening in Europe right now. That proves it in Europe, and it's going to happen here in America.' he said.
'It happened with Brexit. It's going to happen again.'
Brexit, where the UK voted to leave the European Union, was fought over on many fronts, but easier migration to Britain from Europe was a factor.
Maher's guest, controversial columnist and author Joel Stein, pushed back by arguing there was a 'real moral reason' to admit asylum seekers.
'At any number?' Maher asked, to which Stein agreed it couldn't be infinite.But that's their point!' Maher exclaimed in reply.
Maher then quoted a poll in which 64 per cent of Hispanics said they supported giving the president authority to shut the border.
Another 64 per cent of all registered voters would immediately deport all immigrants 'living in the US illegally'.
'Yeah, people hate immigrants,' Stein said of the poll results, but Maher insisted that wasn't true - at least not as a sweeping generalization.
Migrants wait in line hoping for processing from Customs and Border Patrol agents after groups arrived at Jacumba Hot Springs, California, after walking under intense heat from Mexico into the US
Biden's executive order would shutdown asylum requests when the average daily number of arrivals reached 2,500, and kept it closed until it fell to 1,500.
There are concerns Biden's order my not be legally valid as stopping people seeking asylum would violate international treaties or be an overreach of presidential authority, which is what the poll was about.
Seeking asylum at the border, as the vast majority of the recent influx of immigrant do, is not illegal - but sneaking in without asking for asylum is.
Maher made a similar warning last week on his show, when he called Biden's executive order a last minute 'Hail Mary' that wouldn't work.
'If Biden loses this election, it's going to be because of two things: He's old… and immigration,' he said.
'I mean, just on a political level, I don't think they could have handled it worse.'
Maher cited a figure that 'more than nine million migrants have entered' the US since Biden took office in January 2021.
'That's more than the number of people who live in Nicaragua. He let in all of Nicaragua,' he joked.
'The question that Democrats don't seem to be able to have the balls to answer is just how many is too many? And like, infinity is the answer - if you don't give that answer, you're a racist. That's their essential problem with this issue.
'It's a bizarre scheme that of course has pleased nobody. It looks like a last minute - it looks like he did nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.'
Maher noted that Biden tried to fix the issue with legislation pumping enough money into immigration authorities that asylum seekers could be processed in months or weeks, instead of years.
Migrants sit by a makeshift fire to warm up after crossing into the US from Mexico in Jacumba Hot Springs, California
The central problem with the immigration issue is thatthe system has for decades been too overstretched to function effectively.
Asylum seekers have to be in genuine fear for their lives to gain refugee status, and those who arrive for purely economic reasons are turned away.
This is determined by an immigration judge, butit takes five to nine years to get a court date and by then many migrants will never be found.
Biden's bill, created through bipartisan negotiations, would have potentially solved this, but 'Congress and the Republicans purposely spiked that football' to appease Donald Trump, as Maher put it
'They didn't want this bill because they wanted it as an issue. So they could have fixed it themselves, but they didn't,' he said.
'But now it looks like this is his last minute before-the-election Hail Mary pass, and it's not gonna succeed.'
