Obama Defends His Mass Migration ‘Experiment’ After Charlie Kirk Shooting

Former President Barack Obama is once again stepping into the national spotlight, this time trying to manage and redirect the civic conflicts he himself helped ignite through what he now openly calls an “experiment” in mass migration. Speaking on September 16 at the Jefferson Educational Society, just days after progressives had begun celebrating the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk, Obama delivered remarks that revealed both the scale of his project and the deep fractures it created.

“[I] insist that in that process of debate, we respect other people’s right to say things that we profoundly disagree with,” Obama said. He admitted, “I didn’t know Charlie Kirk … I think [his] ideas were wrong,” before adding:

“I can disagree with some of [Kirk’s] broader suggestions that liberals and Democrats are promoting conspiracy to displace whites and replace them by ushering in illegal immigrants. Those are … topics that we have to be able to discuss honestly and forthrightly.”

Kirk had long criticized migration as a wealth-shifting, population-changing imposition by the bipartisan establishment, a warning that resonated deeply with Americans who felt ignored by elites. Yet in that same appearance, Obama went further than ever before in acknowledging the truth: mass migration was never organic, but an elite-driven “experiment.”

“There’s never been an experiment like this, where you have people from every corner of the globe show up in one place,” he admitted. He framed it, however, as an attempt to live out America’s founding ideals:

“[We] say, based on these ideals — we hold these truths to be self-evident… all men are created equal … and a constitution and a Bill of Rights and a democracy — that we can somehow figure out how to get along and maintain our private beliefs and pray to god in our own ways, and retain aspects of the cultures that we bring from wherever it is that we’re coming from, and yet still decide that we are all Americans … and try to make it better for each successive generation.”

Obama even invoked figures like George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney as Republicans who once shared this vision of managing endless diversity. But in doing so, he confirmed what many conservatives have long argued: bipartisan elites imposed a vast social transformation on ordinary Americans without their consent.

He admitted as much when he said, “The point is, is that bipartisanship worked pretty well in Washington when everybody looked the same. And it was harder to do when people started seeing that, ‘Hey, those folks are now here, too.’” By his own words, the push for diversity has generated civic conflict and a political crisis “of the sort that we haven’t seen before.”

This is not accidental. Back in 2009, Obama placed pro-migration advocate Alejandro Mayorkas in a top Homeland Security position, laying the groundwork for the very policies President Joe Biden pursued from 2021 to 2025—policies designed to accelerate demographic change. By 2024, however, Americans had had enough. They elected President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to end and reverse the chaos.

Still, Obama continues to defend his “experiment” and redirect blame onto those who resist it. He pointed fingers at the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge the system:

“We’re okay with just breaking the rules, just breaking the system in certain ways,” he said. “Let’s take something like the National Guard. In Washington, D.C. right now, you have National Guard folks deployed who are setting up checkpoints. And they’re working with ICE, and you have ICE agents who are checking people’s IDs and stopping traffic. That’s not something that we’ve seen before in a non-emergency situation.”

He went on to criticize ICE practices in Los Angeles, the courts’ approval of enforcement actions, and what he described as discriminatory stops. His remarks made clear that his real objection is not to lawlessness at the border, but to lawful enforcement inside the country.

Beyond migration, Obama sought to diffuse responsibility by pointing to the economy, demographics, technology, and the rise of social media. “What happened was, is that how we got information changed, and it was turbocharged by social media,” he said, lamenting that Americans now live in “entirely different” realities. He blamed the filibuster and gerrymandering for government gridlock, suggesting that structural reforms, not his policies, are the problem.

But Obama’s candid admission of an “experiment” speaks volumes. At the 2024 Democratic convention, he said it outright: “No nation, no society has ever tried to build a democracy as big and as diverse as ours before, one that includes people that, over decades, have come from every corner of the globe.” He added, “The rest of the world is watching to see if we can actually pull this off.”

In November 2024, voters rendered their judgment. They rejected Obama’s vision and chose instead to restore sovereignty, common sense, and national identity. The results signaled that Americans are no longer willing to serve as test subjects in an elite project of social engineering.

Obama may still defend his “experiment,” but the people who bear its costs—in schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and civic life—have already spoken. The mandate is clear: protect the nation’s borders, uphold the rule of law, and put American citizens first.