Hallie Shoffner, the Democratic candidate challenging Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for his Senate seat, is facing criticism after comments she made on a podcast about illegal immigrant labor were interpreted by her opponent’s campaign as suggesting undocumented workers are more valuable than American citizens.
Shoffner, a farmer, made the remarks on the “Free Arkansas Podcast” during a wide-ranging, hour-long conversation about political issues facing the state.
“I want to talk about the fact that our immigration system is backlogged, bureaucratic and doesn’t actually help anybody, including American employers who want folks who want to follow the law,” Shoffner said.
She described a conversation with a fellow farmer, whom she identified as a Republican, about the challenges of finding agricultural labor. “Labor is a huge issue, especially when you don’t have a large workforce,” she said. “And every farmer will tell you, ‘yeah, at one point we did, or still do, employ undocumented immigrants.’ And it’s absolutely ridiculous that these folks are being rounded up because they’re hardworking people. They’re some of the best people we know.”
She then added: “And honestly, we’d trade five Americans just for one of them because of how hard they work.”
Shoffner went on to call for a legal pathway for illegal immigrants to work in the United States, saying, “when they’re good workers, we pay them well, they’re good workers, they spend money here [and] they have family here.”
Cotton campaign seizes on comments
Cotton’s campaign said Shoffner’s remarks amounted to an admission that she has employed illegal immigrants herself.
“Hallie Shoffner’s campaign isn’t denying that she employed illegal aliens,” campaign spokesman James Arnold told Fox News Digital. “They’re also standing by Hallie Shoffner’s claim that just one illegal immigrant is more valuable than five American citizens.”
Arnold added: “Every Democrat running for Congress needs to answer if they agree with Hallie Shoffner’s belief that illegal aliens are worth more than Americans.”
Campaign says remarks were taken out of context
Shoffner’s campaign manager, Anna-Lee Pittman, pushed back on that characterization in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying the candidate’s comments were mischaracterized and accusing Cotton of refusing to engage on immigration policy.
Cotton, Pittman said, “spends his days combing through video clips of Hallie Shoffner to find any possible inelegant phrase or line that he can chop up to misrepresent an hour-long conversation and present it with no context,” adding that “in this response, Shoffner relayed a conversation she had with another farmer about challenges with labor.”
A shifting position on ICE
The controversy comes as Shoffner has also altered her public stance on federal immigration enforcement. In June, she said she supported defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its current form.
“I would vote to defund ICE as it exists right now,” Shoffner said at the time. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement was created not that long ago, and it no longer serves the purpose it was originally created for.”
She elaborated further, saying: “I would not spend one more dime on ICE, because — not just because of the human dignity issue — but also the fact that it is now the largest law enforcement agency in the country. It has 10 times the budget of the organization that fights child sex trafficking.”
Earlier this month, however, Shoffner reversed course in a Facebook post, writing: “I don’t want to defund ICE, I want to reform it.”
Immigration remains a central issue heading into the midterm elections, following the Trump administration’s continued nationwide operations to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, which have drawn sharp criticism from Democratic officials and activists.
