It's the tactic they always use, in one place after another across the planet, to try to move a culture to the right, to prepare the way for a strongman to appear with bogus promises of solving folks' problems, especially the problem of those fearsome immigrants said to be swamping this and that nation.
Sadly, this tactic is increasingly successful, because too many people in too many places are ready to be energized by hatred of the other, the immigrant.