Fox News host Tucker Carlson and National Review Executive Editor Reihan Salam on Monday discussed a new study out of Yale-MIT showing that the actual number of illegal immigrants in the United States could be 22 million, double the generally reported number of 11 million.
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“It can’t possibly be just the Democrats,” Salam said, responded to Carlson’s question about how we got to this point. “It’s also Republicans who decided that this was useful for their purposes. It was Republicans who were more interested in the interests of employers than of workers. You’ve got Democrats and Republicans who feel this way, both of whom worked together to see to it that you do not have a more worker friendly immigration and economic policy across the board. And that has been huge dereliction on the part of America’s elites.”
Carlson expressed the hope that Salam’s new book, Melting Pot or Civil War? A Son of Immigrants Makes The Case Against Open Borders, would start a conversation, not about race, “but about economic effects of immigration on the country.”
“So what we have right now is a situation where we are in a combustible state where people are trying to turn one kind of American against another,” responded Salam. “You have people saying, ‘These older people in middle America, they just don’t get it.’ And others saying, ‘We need to replace them essentially with an entirely new people. They need to be more enlightened – they need to get with the program or get hell out.'”
“I find it pretty terrifying that we’ve gotten to the point where elites have almost seceded from the country that has actually enabled them to build their wealth and power,” Salam added.
“Like the corporations they serve, they are multinational,” said Carlson.
Salam noted that is is actually often the “second generation children of immigrants” and “working class” people who “actually suffer” from their actions.
“The same government, the same elite that is not looking out for the interests of older stock Americans, later generation Americans, it’s also saying these second generation Americans who maybe, they’re having a tough time,” said Salam. “‘Oh, we’ll just replace you with a new round.’ It’s this kind of incredible attitude.”