Tucked away in Donald Trump’s “7 point” plan is an assertion that illegal immigrants cost the United States (US) $11 billion a year. While in the scheme of the US federal budget $11 billion seems like a drop in the bucket, $11 billion annually seems like a fairly significant cost.
So where did this figure come from? The only source for this figure appears to be a cnsnews.com (a right-wing “news” site) article claiming that illegal immigrants cost the US $10.7 billion annually. In its article, CNS News in turn bases this figure on “calculations” done by a group called Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Further research leads to a factcheck.org post which also cites FAIR as the source of this claim. Factcheck.org notes that the figure “is completely false.” Not surprising. But what was surprising was who, or what FAIR is.
In the past, FAIR has received $1.2 million in funding from the Pioneer Fund which is a neo-Nazi-white supremacist group set up to encourage “race betterment.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has also designated FAIR as a hate group:
FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content.
A quote from founder of FAIR, John Tanton:
"As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?"
— FAIR founder and board member John Tanton, Oct. 10, 1986
I guess it will be a HIGH ENERGY explosion . . .
Last week, Donald Trump denounced David Duke on Friday but refused to denounce him two days later because he had an audio malfunction (although the audio worked well enough for him to repeat Duke’s name to Tapper during the malfunction--funny how that worked). Now he comes out with a healthcare “reform” proposal that cites a figure pushed by a known white supremacist organization.
Either Donald Trump is a covert white supremacist or he is literally making stuff up as he goes along and using google to find fake facts to support his proposals without fact checking his sources. This is the republican “front-runner.”