Beto O’Rourke to Black American: Illegal Immigrant Labor Needed for Cotton Gin

During a town hall event on Wednesday night, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) — running against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for the Senate seat — told a black American who questioned his support of illegal immigration that illegal aliens from Central America and Mexico are today’s cotton pickers.

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BLACK AMERICAN: My question is, do you support granting citizenship and American-paid benefits to illegal aliens who violated our country to come here, who fly their foreign flags here, who have citizenship in their countries and whose families did absolutely not build this country, while black people are subject to things that you explained before? You can answer yes or no, please. {snip}

BETO O’ROURKE: Many, many people built this country, first of all. And we are a country of many people … and I’m paraphrasing Congressman Lewis at this point, but he said something to the effect that each of us came to this country in a different ship. Some of us came here against our will, some of us immigrated here lawfully … some of us are showing up right now as we speak. They’re fleeing the deadliest countries in the planet today. The northern triangle countries of Central America … imagine how bad things have to be for you to scoop up that six-month-old daughter of yours and to walk 2,000 miles … to refuge in a country that is comprised of people from the world over. And yes, there are some people who did not follow our laws when they came here to be with their families or to work jobs and, in some cases, no one was willing to work in their communities. {snip}

I mentioned going to the high school in Roscoe, I also went to the cotton gin in Roscoe. And at that cotton gin, there are 24 jobs and the manager of that gin says it does not matter the wages that I pay or the number of hours that we set … no one born in Roscoe … or Texas or this country who is willing to work. But there are immigrants who are coming from Central America or Mexico or other parts of the world to Roscoe to work these jobs and to help build our economy. {snip}

O’Rourke recently said in an interview on CBS The Late Show, that he supported an amnesty for more than three million illegal aliens who were eligible and enrolled for President Obama’s DACA program.

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Data reported by Breitbart News reveals how studies by economists and researchers find that it is, specifically, underprivileged black American men who suffer the most from the importation of more than 1.5 million low-skilled immigrants every year to the U.S.

In the mid-1990s, Civil Rights icon and Texas Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan issued the findings of her immigration commission, where she revealed that mass immigration to the U.S. hurt poor, working-class and lower-tier middle-class Americans the most, as it unfairly put them in competition with a never-ending flow of cheaper, foreign workers.

Most impacted, the Jordan Commission discovered, were black Americans.

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For blue-collar American workers, mass immigration has not only kept wages down but in many cases, decreased wages, as Breitbart News reported. {snip}

Black Americans are often the most supportive of reducing immigration levels. A Harvard/Harris Poll conducted this year found that 48 percent of black Americans said they would like to see between only one and 250,000 legal immigrants brought to the U.S. a year, a near immigration moratorium when compared to current levels.

A CBS News/YouGov Poll conducted a few months ago revealed that a plurality of black Americans in swing districts who say immigration has changed their neighborhoods concede that immigration is making life in America “worse” for them.

About 36 percent of black Americans said immigration has changed their communities, and roughly 45 percent of those black Americans say the mass importation of mostly immigrants from Central America is making their lives worse off.