Tancredo Tells Young Conservatives to Halt All Immigration

Posted by Andrea Nill, Think Progress at 10:01 AM on July 21, 2009.

This past weekend at the Young America’s Foundation’s Summit on Radical Islam, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) once again advocated for an immigration policy that closes the nation’s doors to all foreign workers, regardless of their skill-level. When one young UCLA conservative questioned whether it would actually be wise to turn away the high-skilled labor of other countries, Tancredo said he’d like to “try” shutting off all immigration:

QUESTION: We’re still really strapped — we don’t have nurses, we don’t have enough teachers, we don’t have enough OB-GYNs…So isn’t it a little maybe narr — I’m not saying narrow-minded — but maybe not looking at the picture accurately if you say we can just shut off all immigration?

TANCREDO: Well…[Laughs]…I’d like to give it a try. [More laughing].

Watch it:

Tancredo is an honorary chairman of Youth for Western Civilization and accepted over $20,000 in donations from eugenecist John Tanton during his failed 2008 presidential campaign. Though many attribute his loss and the GOP’s overall defeat to the anti-immigrant platforms that he and several other Republicans espoused, Tancredo continues to defy the advice of some of his brightest party members by singing the only “tune” he knows. Several Republican leaders and strategists have indicated that the GOP must clean up its rhetoric and views on immigration if it hopes to endure.

Tagged as: immigration, conservatives, tancredo