Democrat Janelle Stelson is running for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 10th District and is caught in a contradictory stance on illegal immigration. She told local voters she would send illegal entrants home, then told D.C. Democrats she wants them assimilated and working.
Contradictory Messaging on Immigration
On October 8, 2024, Stelson told local media she would send people who cross illegally or are here illegally home. A month later she told a gathering of D.C. Democrats she wants illegal aliens assimilated into neighborhoods and working, sending money back home.
The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) ran an ad highlighting those positions, claiming she supports taxpayer‑funded benefits for illegal aliens and a plan to close rural hospitals in Pennsylvania. CLF said its source was an interview with Stelson on Fox 43/WPMT, where she advocated a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.
Ian Thompson, a story desk editor at Fox 43/WPMT, asked CLF for its source. The fund replied that the interview itself provided the answer, but Thompson continued to press the issue. Thompson, a self‑identified left‑wing partisan who has written extensively against President Trump, is a known critic of the former president and has endorsed Kamala Harris.
In a 2024 Slate opinion piece for his student newspaper, Thompson called Trump a “wannabe‑fascist” and a “danger to the country,” and later defended his criticism of Trump voters as driven by “cognitive dissonance” and “sunk cost fallacy.”
CLF spokeswoman Lydia Hall responded, “Janelle Stelson is a far‑left progressive who masqueraded as a reporter for years. Now that she can’t spin the news herself, her liberal reporter friends are covering for her. It’s deceitful and wrong. She is a far‑left radical who will make Pennsylvania even less affordable with socialist programs and benefits for illegals.”
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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