Anti-Immigration Group Makes South Carolina Ad Buy

Anti-immigration group NumbersUSA announced on Tuesday that it will spend at least $100,000 on advertising before the South Carolina Republican primary on Jan. 21 in an effort to tie high unemployment levels to legal immigration.

"Jobs, jobs, jobs," a voice-over says in the ad. "Everybody talks about creating jobs, but who will get the jobs? Not one candidate is talking about why the government is ready to bring in another 1 million legal immigrants this year to take American jobs."

"Legal doesn't make it right when there are millions of jobless Americans," it continues. "Ask the candidates who should get new American jobs, unemployed Americans or will they bring in another million immigrants?"

NumbersUSA is one of three organizations started by anti-immigration activist John Tanton, and they are all focused on decreasing legal and undocumented immigration. Another of the groups, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

South Carolina is home to a law based on Arizona's SB 1070, which gave greater power to police to enforce immigration. The Justice Department sued the state in October to block the law from going into effect on Jan. 1. A judge blocked key provisions of the law on Dec. 22.

Some Republican candidates are using the law to appeal to immigration hardliners in the state. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised the South Carolina law in November, after he faced criticism for saying he would allow some undocumented immigrants to gain legal status.

"Clearly the Obama administration has been comfortable allowing foreign governments to enter a lawsuit against an American state," he said at a town hall meeting in Charleston, S.C. "So here's a simple way to think of it: President Obama sided with Mexico, I would side with South Carolina."

NumbersUSA has become something of a bellwether for Republican presidential candidates, who cite the organization's immigration report card to prove they oppose unauthorized immigration. The organization scores candidates based on opposition to "amnesty," desire to "secure the borders" and plans to "reduce overall immigration," among other factors. All candidates, including President Barack Obama, have a "bad" rating for reducing immigration in general.

The group also ran TV and radio ads in Iowa and is considering similar ad buys in future primary states. In Iowa, NumbersUSA spent about $100,000 during the lead-up to the caucuses, and ran national TV ads during some Republican debates.

The South Carolina ad-buy could go as high as $150,000, depending on how much airtime is available.

Comments

[LacalPal111]

08:51 PM on 01/20/2012

Let's get FACTS straight. It's not the Government that bring people, like this ad says, it's the U.S. citizens that bring their wives, parents, nad children here.

One million is not as much as it seems for 300 million country. It's only about 0.3% of the total population. Their claims that those people take jobs from Americans are not backed up with any single fact.

[brandon gunnells]

11:56 AM on 01/17/2012

once again a lib publication outright lying to sway votes and break down the fabric of this once greatest nation on earth.

[Al Vill]

09:42 PM on 01/16/2012

America. Don't forget that there are other issues as important as illegal immigration. They are using these tactic to take your mind off of social security, health care, taking money from schools, crime, unemployment, jobs going overseas, high gas prices, prisons overflowing that they let criminals out early, taxes, importing goods with toxic chemicals, the deficit, white collar crime and of course terrorism. It goes on and on. If there are no jobs, why take on legal or illegal immigrants. No more promises. We need responsible leaders not publicans.

[chriscu]

03:36 PM on 01/16/2012

Its sad to see a handful of people who agree with our ridiculous and generous immigration levels and then turn around and support illegal immigration and US taxpayer benefits for them.

[maisam]

02:02 PM on 05/16/2012

Immigrants, once become a US citizen, are applying for welfare benefits because they are in a tight-knit family culture—they live under 1 roof—and can easily qualify for gov’t assistance. All the immigrants I know of are drawing welfare assistance.

An immigrant can bring almost all his relatives here and the relatives, once became an immigrant, can bring almost his relatives and so on. The original immigrant is oftentimes-- the only one working---the rest are all in government assistance.

[doublehappi]

12:25 AM on 01/16/2012

Its sad to see a handfull of people who fill most of the comments on issues such as immigration. Sometimes i wonder if they are paid members of NumbersUSA just to come here and spout their BS

[Dave Holzman]

10:41 PM on 01/16/2012

You might be interested to read what the NYT's Nicholas Kristof says ,in his column,

select.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/09kristof.html

Krugman also understands that there are problems with mass immigration:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/the-curious-politics-of-immigration/#

Contrary to the writer's implications, NumbersUSA is not a hate group; in fact, its head feels very strongly about racial equality, the NYT said of Roy Beck in a recent article:

Mr. Beck said the charges of bigotry were especially unfair and let a reporter hear a tape of his 1970 wedding ceremony, which included a song he wrote pledging to fight ''race hate.'' He deliberately lives in integrated neighborhoods, he said, and sent his children to integrated schools, including one in a mostly black housing project.

''What kind of racist does that?'' he said. ''They've never accused us of doing anything that's racist or white nationalist. It's only that Numbers U.S.A. 'has ties' '' to Dr. Tanton.

He added: ''Even if there were some mild strain of white nationalism in John, the fact is that the results of everything he is pushing in immigration policy would disproportionately help black and Hispanic Americans.''

Read the rest here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E7DC1138F934A25757C0A9679D8B63&scp=2&sq=tanton&st=nyt&pagewanted=all

It's sad to see people make negative comments about people and group out of ignorance and bias.

[doublehappi]

10:40 AM on 01/17/2012

I was really interested to see Krugman's article and i did read what he read, he did not write one word about the"problems with immigration" he wrote about the politics of immigration, which it believes- rightly, that it divides the parties.
The NYT article by kristof clearly mentions there should be an increase in the number of H1b visas and other legal; channels of work visa. and also talks about regulating and legalizing the illegal aliens, I am not an open borders advocate, but i am not a r@cist either who hates people from other backgrounds.

And i see this http://www.splcenter.org/publications/the-nativist-lobby-three-faces-of-intolerance/numbersusa-the-grassroots-organizer

[doublehappi]

10:43 AM on 01/17/2012

http://www.newcomm.org/pdf/CNC-NUSA.pdf

My comments are not out of ignorance or Bias, You are a popinjay of a nationalist,. Numbers USA's support of reduced legal immigration even BEFORE the financial crisis, LONG before it, sugests there is something clearly wrong with the man.
Let me tell you this, You are not the representative of the country, neither is roy beck, he will not last one single election to any office. He might not even get a janatorial Job outside his office. which is exactly the reason he has been running the multimillion dollar racket since 3 decades

[sickbird]

04:40 PM on 01/13/2012

I would like thank NumbersUSA for their hard work. Will be sending them another donation tonight.

[inthedesert]

02:08 PM on 01/13/2012

What writers like this do by leaving out that profoundly important word "illegal" before "immigration" is to fan the flames of distrust and dislike for immigrants in general. This IS very true and I don't think they have a clue that this is what is happening in the minds of many Americans who have been in the past sort of on the fence as far as illegals. And, these Americans are NOT "on the fringe" either. Our numbers grow every time we read some article that tries to blur the argument about illegals and portray us as somehow racist because we don't want America to become another Mexico. It's not working anymore.

[UTARebel]

03:16 PM on 01/13/2012

Right on track, inthedesert

[brandon gunnells]

11:56 AM on 01/17/2012

right on , its a ploy from the illegals rights group and the libs to sway the unedgucated in this country.

[Mark Lindley]

01:24 PM on 01/13/2012

So to limit legal immigration during times where jobs and resources are scarce is somehow objectionable?

[inthedesert]

02:13 PM on 01/13/2012

In 2008, our own Congressional Budget Office made the statement that "at both the state and local level, illegal immigrants already cost more in public services such as education and health care than they pay in taxes". (USATODAY; 1/21/08, Rising Health Care Costs Put Focus on Illegal Immigrants; Richard Wolf, author.)

[BigSkyCountryMT]

07:51 PM on 01/12/2012

Write your senators to oppose these bills HR 3012 & S 1857, both bills would remove country limitations and would give 90% of annual employment based green cards to India. This bill would also provide amensty to irish and 10K working visa to Irish.
Sign the petition to oppose these two dangerous bills that would let India take over the IT industry.

http://www.petition2congress.com/5677/oppose-hr-3012-its-companions-1857/

[doublehappi]

12:22 AM on 01/16/2012

that my friend is incorrect. It makes the process a FIFO. No 90% quota of any sort.

[Dave Holden]

02:42 PM on 01/12/2012

I was recently laid off from a very high tech company in silicon valley. I'm estimating that 1/2 the remaining 400 employees were recent immigrants, H1B or recent citizens. I've seen the trend for 20 years in silicon valley, lay off older US born citizens and replace with new hires from Asia (indians and chinese). Our grad schools are nearly all foreigners. Of course you can always find a cheaper better immigrant, there are 7 billion people on the planet. I guess we'll just have to vacate the country, the oligarchs would like to reduce wages. How about looking out for our own citizens instead of the corporate interests. Wake up people, vote for lower immigration.

And I haven't even mentioned the illegal immigrants who take all the low skilled jobs while inflating our low skilled population.

[Vinced]

03:26 PM on 01/12/2012

Right on Dave! Those are good reasons to join NumbersUSA!

[BigSkyCountryMT]

07:47 PM on 01/12/2012

Write your senators to oppose these bills that would remove country limitation on employment based visa, this bill would give 90% annual permanent residence visa to India. Sign petition to stop these bills HR3012 / S1857 in becoming a law.

http://www.petition2congress.com/5677/oppose-hr-3012-its-companions-1857/

[Roberta PA]

01:00 PM on 01/12/2012

This article was already biased by its title. NumbersUSA is NOT an anti-immigration group. It is an immigration reduction group. There is a big difference between the two. With 20 million Americans out of work, our government is giving out over a 100,000 Visas per MONTH. Yes, you read that correctly. This is a number that needs to be drastically reduced. It is now costing the tax payers 113 BILLION dollars a year to take care of our illegal aliens. Almost half of all illegals came here legally, but overstayed their papers. Our present immigration laws need to be enforced. With 7 million American jobs being worked by illegal aliens, immigration has now become a jobs issue.

[Lance Sjogren]

03:02 PM on 01/12/2012

Roberta:

That is a small thing to complain about considering the hate speech from both the far left and far right that is usually leveled at anyone who advocates a 21st century immigration policy.

[Vinced]

07:57 AM on 01/13/2012

Actually, labelling Numbers as "anti-immigrant", the false claims of racism and xenophobia, etc are part of the hate speech from the pro-open borders/cheap labor/illegal alien side.

[Mark Lindley]

01:30 PM on 01/13/2012

21st century immigration policy? Is that what it is called when in spite of all the unemployed American, our taxes going through the roof yet advocating for more population growth from both legal and illegal immigrants?

Is there some kind of logic in your views?

[kenmi]

10:06 AM on 01/12/2012

Please be accurate! Numbers USA is not ant-immigrant. They seek to decrease immigration numbers. Our current immigration numbers are simpy UNSUSTAINABLE. What are you going to do when several other countries discover that if they get millions of illegal citizens into our country they will never be sent home? We are headed for environmental and economic ruin. The current millions of immigrants policy can not be continued. You are pushing a very cruel fairy tale.

[LacalPal111]

08:57 PM on 01/20/2012

I understand how an ad that can make an "average Joe" angry.
But how can you make a judgement about what's "sustainable" and what's not? The U.S. is a 300M country. One million make only 0.3 percent of the total population. And remember, it's not the Government, but the U.S. citizens that bring their wives, parents, and children to the U.S.

[jweider]

09:57 AM on 01/12/2012

LA Times reported yesterday that $26 billion dollars in remittances were wired to Mexico last year by Mexicans working in the U.S..
That's $26 billion that was not recirculated in the U.S. to help grow our economy.
$26 billion that was not taxed to support our government.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mexico-remittances-20120112,0,6700884.story

[inthedesert]

10:08 AM on 01/12/2012

Yes, I read that also this morning. Remittances are the second biggest income for the Mexican government other than oil revenues. So, obviosly they want as many illegals over here as possbile and as many already here to stay here as possible.

[Tony Torrey]

12:15 PM on 01/17/2012

Don't worry, those 26 billion dollars buy American made products in Mexico that create more jobs in the USA.

[spytheweb]

05:42 AM on 01/12/2012

Make that:

Anti-illegal alien Group Makes South Carolina Ad Buy.

[Vinced]

04:24 PM on 01/11/2012

Perhaps you should have covered the REASONS that NumberUSA opposes EXCESSIVE immigration. (They are not "anti-immigration at all, but opposed to EXCESSIVE immigration, legal and otherwise.)

Little things like the environment and a runaway population growth are things that ALL, ESPECIALLY those of us a little left of center should agree on as not good.

Wage depression of the least fortunate is another reason for NumbersUSA to want to restrict immigratin to reasonable levels.

This is NOT about racism, it about numbers. Please open your mind and check out the NumbersUSA web site.