Andrew Yang: Immigrants ‘Scapegoated’ for ‘Wall-to-Wall Robots’ in Factories

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said immigrants were being used as scapegoats for automation in factories during the second Democrat debate on Wednesday.

Yang said that a positive story of immigration needs to be told, such as that of his own father, who he said migrated to the United States as a graduate student.

“I’m the son of immigrants myself. My father immigrated here as a graduate student and generated over 65 U.S. patents for GE and IBM. I think that’s a pretty good deal for the United States,” he said.

“That’s the immigration story we need to be telling. We can’t always focus on the distressed stories,” he said. “And if you go to a factory here in Michigan you will not find wall-to-wall immigrants. You will find wall-to-wall robots and machines. Immigrants are being scapegoated for issues that have nothing to do with our economy.”

Yang did not say how he would address the challenges of automation. His point also did not address the illegal immigration crisis on the southern border.

Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan testified this week that more than 4,600 illegal immigrants were apprehended everyday at the border in May. In July, that number dropped but was still almost 3,000 per day.