So here’s a dark and not-so-secret truth about the GOP’s anti-immigrant position: they’re not only opposed to undocumented immigration. Frequently, they are also against legal immigrants.
Former and probably future presidential candidate Rick Santorum exposed that fact at a Tea Party rally in Florida, in this video captured by American Bridge:
He believes that legal immigrants are taking the jobs meant for “native-born Americans”:
Let me ask you a question. Since 2000 there have been a little over six million net new jobs created. What percentage of those net new jobs are held by people not born in this country? Half? Sixty? All of them. There are fewer native-born Americans working today than there was [sic] in 2000, in spite of 17 million more workers in the workforce. So when people tell me the problem is just illegal immigration, they’re wrong. They’re wrong… We are almost at the same level of non-native born in this country they were at in 1920. And in 1920 they realized, wait a minute, it’s affecting our workers. Wages have stagnated, everybody knows that. Why? Part of the reason. Median income is going dowb. Why? Part of the reason is that we’re bringing floods of legal, not illegal, legal immigrants into the country.
The US is a nation of immigrants, and opposing legal immigrants is an extra-extremist position championed by the likes of FAIR and Laura Ingraham. FAIR is a hate group founded by a white supremacist. Why is Santorum espousing their views?
