The News
The letter came from a Pennsylvania government office that didn’t exist, informing Elizabeth Bennett of a program that didn’t exist, either.
“You have been selected as a Wayward Steward ® exchange home for homeless immigrants and victims of foreign wars,” read the letter, credited to the “Pennsylvania Congressional Office of Immigration Affairs,” which arrived at her suburban Philadelphia home on Thursday. “Using property records and income records, we have determined that you are capable of housing (5) refugees ranging from ages 1 month to 90 years.”
Bennett, 62, quickly identified the hoax –— after a split second, she recalled to Semafor, when she imagined how her family would put up refugees in “a minimum of one bedroom” with “US Government approved bunk beds.” She called the number on the letterhead, which went to a helpline for benefits. (As of Friday afternoon, the number has been disconnected.) She confirmed that the PCOIA (the acronym that appeared on the envelope) didn’t actually exist.
“I felt like it was trying to invoke fear about immigrants, and anger toward Biden and Harris,” Bennett said. She posted the letter on a Facebook group for the progressive grassroots organization Indivisible, and contacted several levels of law enforcement. The district attorney’s office, she said, told her it had been getting reports of bogus political mail, though nothing like hers.
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David’s view
There’s plenty of immigration misinformation floating around swing states. And it’s not entirely new for a political group to design direct mail that looks like something official. People don’t like it, but they open it, and they remember it.
But the hoax letter to Bennett, who was not a potential Republican voter, didn’t ask for anything and contained no indication of any affiliation with a campaign or advocacy group. It referred, in mangled English, to a fake order (US5Ca12-B) “written into Law by President Joe Biden & Vice President Kamala Harris.” It promised a weekly “county inspection” and an $80 “supply stipend weekly” to pay for the mandatory daily meal Bennett and her husband would provide their “charges.”
It was somewhere between dirty trick, parody, and gibberish; it was also in harmony with the Trump campaign’s increased focus on refugees in small towns and cities, like Charleroi, a western Pennsylvania city where about 2,000 migrants and refugees have settled. Federal programs have helped in some cases, including an optional program that places refugees with citizens — but it’s voluntary.
Notable
- Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Julia Terruso also saw the letter after Bennett posted it, and got some more details.
- In the New York Times, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reported from Charleroi, where refugee myths ran wild: “A musician said his bandmates were now afraid to venture downtown for jam sessions, fearing that migrants were causing a rise in crime, which local officials said was not true.”