We’ve written several times about the growing scandal swirling around the Heritage Foundation, its deeply flawed immigration report and the disturbing views of Jason Richwine, one of the study’s authors. Perhaps most interesting is the potential for the Heritage story to taint other “think tanks” whose “scholars” also hold questionable views on minorities, immigrants, and immigration. As Buzzfeed reported today, what happened to Heritage has implications for “think tanks” like the Center for Immigration Studies, led by Mark S. Krikorian:
“Now everything that Richwine has ever been associated with is now tarnished,” said an official at another pro-reform, conservative-leaning group. “And now every other scholar is going to be under a microscope.”
Two leading voices from the Center for Immigration Studies — an anti-immigration think tank that traces its roots to John Tanton, a Michigan doctor and member of the zero population growth movement who founded chapters of Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club while writing about the dangers of an end to America’s “European-American majority” —have been a big part of opposition to immigration reform on Capitol Hill. Supporters of reform have long tried to make CIS scholarship toxic, and therefore irrelevant, in the debate but up to now they have failed and CIS remains a big part of immigration in Washington.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama, hosted a conference call with CIS Research Director Stephen Camarota to oppose comprehensive reform. Last month, both Camorata and CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian tesified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform.
Both Camarota and Krikorian have said things pro-immigration groups call at best extreme and at worst racist….
…Sessions’ office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Krikorian’s and Camarota’s past statements.
Ouch for Krikorian. You’ve got to be pretty toxic when even Senator Sessions won’t defend you.
