Billionaire Koch Brothers: Trump is ‘Wrong,’ It’s ‘Morally Right’ to Import Foreign Welfare Dependents

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

The pro-mass immigration, GOP megadonor, billionaire Koch brothers are opposing President Trump’s initiative to save American taxpayers from having to subsidize welfare-dependent legal immigrants.

Since February, Breitbart News has reported how the Trump administration is set to enforce an existing law whereby foreign nationals seeking to permanently resettle in the U.S. would need to prove that they will not become drains on the American taxpayer.

Such a plan would be a boon for American taxpayers, who currently spend about $57.4 billion a year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low-skilled legal immigrants every year. In the last decade, the U.S. has imported more than 10 million foreign nationals and is on track to import the same amount in the coming decade if legal immigration controls are not implemented.

Through the Koch brothers’ network of organizations—which have campaigned for Democrats’ open borders policies this election cycle—which include the pro-mass immigration LIBRE Initiative and the economic libertarianism group Freedom Partners, the billionaire donors are opposing Trump’s reform to the legal immigration system.

Freedom Partners Executive Vice President Nathan Nascimento said in a statement that allowing mass migration of welfare-dependent foreign nationals into the U.S. is “morally right,” calling Trump’s reform “the wrong approach.”

“We should always welcome people who desire to come here and contribute because is it both morally right and their efforts benefit our nation, economy, and taxpayers,” Nascimento said.

Nascimento also said the U.S. must continue bringing more than 1.5 million immigrants to the country every year because there are not enough American workers willing to do blue-collar jobs, though economic data does not back up the so-called “labor shortage” claims made by the big business lobby and Chamber of Commerce.

“Moreover, with a strong economy fueled by the Trump administration’s pro-growth policies, unemployment is at a nearly 50-year low and many companies struggle to find workers,” Nascimento said. “We’re concerned that this proposed rule discourages well-intentioned, legal immigrants from coming here, particularly at a time when their contributions are needed the most.”

LIBRE Initiative Policy Director Kevin Hernandez similarly denounced Trump’s plan to save American taxpayer money, accusing the administration of “attempting to further restrict and complicate legal immigration under the guise of a welfare reform regulatory rule.”

“Our communities, businesses, and economy will suffer as the rule is likely to turn away immigrants who will contribute their ideas and talents in a mutually beneficial way to society,” Hernandez said.

Currently, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants every year, with more than 70 percent coming to the country through the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens are allowed to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country.

The Koch brothers have said they oppose Trump’s plan to end chain migration. In the next 20 years, the current U.S. legal immigration system is on track to import roughly 15 million new foreign-born voters. Between seven and eight million of those foreign-born voters will arrive in the U.S. through chain migration.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

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