The anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA, a creation of white nationalist John Tanton, held a webcast yesterday during which a speaker admitted their full reason for opposing immigration reform—because they believe that all immigration is bad for America.
The call featured Robert Rector, now of ‘I wrote a paper with a guy who thinks Hispanics have low IQs’ fame; Rosemary Jenks of NumbersUSA; Roy Beck of NumbersUSA; Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots; Colleen Holcomb of the Eagle Forum; Tom Broadwell of Americans 4 Work; and Danielle Cutrona from the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), best known for her role in spreading the Marcophone rumor. There’s always got to be a Sessions staffer at these anti-immigrant events.
Nobody joked about shooting a member of Congress on the call, but toward its conclusion one of its speakers did give away the game. Contrary to what conservatives (like Ted Cruz) often say about supporting legal immigration while condemning illegal immigration, Tom Broadwell said during a discussion of jobs for American workers that “legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, they’re all bad for America.”
And that notion is the foundation of the opposition to immigration reform that we see from NumbersUSA and its sibling groups like FAIR and the Center for Immigration Studies. All three groups were founded or supported by white nationalist and population control extremist John Tanton, who decided in the ‘70s that there were too many people living in the US and that immigration (both legal and illegal) had to be curtailed as a result.
Today, FAIR’s website openly touts population control rhetoric and talks about how “the US has already exceeded its sustainable population level.” (PS. FAIR is also considered a hate group.) NumbersUSA and its executive director, Roy Beck, often talk about the need for population “stabilization” and the need to reduce immigration numbers toward that goal—again, both legal and illegal. Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, has a whole book written about “The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal.”
Those who may be tempted to listen to this group, then, should be forewarned: their mission is to kill the immigration reform bill—and eventually, it is to curtail all US immigration. Considering that even the anti-reform letter that anti-immigrant Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Jeff Sessions, and Chuck Grassley sent out this week didn’t advocate that, what the groups on yesterday’s call are really up to is an extremist mission indeed.
As a Rubio spokesman once said, “some groups that oppose legal immigration should not be considered part of the conservative coalition…[the] vast majority of Republicans strongly support legal immigration.”
Watch a clip of the call below:
