Numbers USA Director: Paul Ryan 'Ideologically Committed' to Open Borders

The executive director of Numbers USA, a group that opposes the Senate’s immigration bill because of the impact it would have on American workers, said he was not hopeful that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) would ever disavow his belief in “open borders.” 

Appearing on Breitbart News Sunday with host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, Roy Beck said he believes Ryan is “ideologically committed to the idea of open borders” because he “comes out of an ideology that just does not accept that the law of supply and demand works when it comes to labor markets.”

He said he was “not very hopeful” that Ryan would abandon those beliefs. 

Beck said Ryan was not a part of the “patriotic libertarianism” wing that recognizes the importance of borders. 

“I don’t mean to say he hates America, or anything like that,” Beck said. “He just doesn’t believe borders are that important.” 

Beck claimed Ryan’s philosophy was, “if you are going to have goods going back and forth across the border you ought to have people–workers–going back and forth.”

“When you say that, you are saying to that person who has a high school degree because there wasn’t any money in his family… No matter what your situation is, you should have to compete with every hungry person around the world that wants to come in and compete with you for a job,'” Beck said. “Now, that’s not a nation once you say that.”

He added, “Are we a national community? And does our government exist for us? Is it of us, by us, for us?”

Beck then noted that Ryan did not meet with unemployed workers last week at his immigration town hall event, even though he met with illegal immigrants. He said someone should ask Ryan how his immigration policy can possibly be for the American worker and noted Ryan argues that more immigrants and guest workers are needed because his district does not have enough workers to man manufacturing plants.

Beck pointed out that just above Ryan’s district is Milwaukee, which has a large black population, many of whom are currently unemployed in the down economy and could do the jobs Ryan claims Americans do not want to do. 

The Wall Street Journal referred to those against open borders–like Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and Breitbart News–as being part of the “blood and soil” wing of the Republican Party. Though the Journal was trying to deceptively link the “blood and soil” wing to the fascism in Germany and Italy, host Steve Bannon said that label was “a badge of honor” because, “We consider that the American wing of the Republican Party.”