White Trump official registers new organization: Black America for Immigration Reform

FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2017 file photo, people take the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In a Los Angeles ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017, more than 9,000 new American citizens will hear a newly recorded message from President Donald Trump welcoming them to the country and urging them to help others assimilate to help keep the country "safe, strong and free." It is the first time the message from Trump will be played at the massive swearing-in ceremonies held each month in Southern California. A former Trump official has launched a new immigration policy group, Black America for Immigration Reform. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

A white Trump staffer with a track record of divisive remarks regarding racial issues has registered a new organization: Black America for Immigration Reform.

William W. Chip, the lone agent named for the left-leaning immigration policy organization founded last week in Washington, D.C., worked as the senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, according to Politico.

Chip said the organization, which will soon have 501(c)(3) registration and a website, initially aims to draw attention to data suggesting that less-educated immigrant employees harm their less-educated American-born peers. 

Trump Immigrant Message -- Black America for Immigration Reform
In this Feb. 15, 2017, file photo, people take the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center. A former Trump staffer, who is white, has launched a new immigration policy group, Black America for Immigration Reform. (AP Photo by Jae C. Hong, File)

“Anytime you have research that suggests you should reduce immigration, you’re immediately attacked by the mainstream media and the left and all the politically correct people — that oh, you’re just a bunch of white racists who want to keep America white,” Chip said, Politico reported. “And so the feeling was, if we had a legitimate, African American organization, whose board consisted of prominent African Americans, they might get more credibility.”

The organization will place special attention on Black workers, who they claim face more competition for positions. The group aims to exploit the justification to advance restrictive immigration policies, including measures to limit legal immigration and mandating companies to utilize E-Verify, a federal website that allows employers to verify a person’s eligibility for work.

In an interview, Chip explained he has no plans to be part of the organization’s board, instead the group will be set up for two Black board members of the Center for Immigration Studies, T. Willard Fair and Frank Morris.

Fair, also the head of the Miami Urban League, said having seen Haitians move to Dade County, he saw how it could hinder Black Miamians’ advancement if it went unhandled. “And then Chip came up with the idea that we ought to begin to react again based on what’s going on at the southern border and how it was going to impact us going forward,” he contended.

Critics of the argument claim the foundation is an underhanded ploy to thwart substantial reform initiatives. 

Harry Holzer, a labor economist at Georgetown University and former head economist at the Department of Labor under the Clinton administration, called the situation complex. He said most economists believe immigrants benefit the labor market overall and have little effect on less-educated local employees, although they acknowledge there may be a slight cost to some groups, such as Black people in particular sectors of the economy.

Chip has not concealed his opinions on race while covering immigration at the Center for Immigration Studies, one of the top organizations that promote immigration restrictions, for over two decades. 

In 2021, he took to Twitter, now called X, to publish several contentious tweets, one of which questioned whether ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s decision to murder George Floyd was racially motivated. He also discussed Native Americans’ worries about European colonization in another passage.

As a strategy to support immigration restrictions, Black America for Immigration Reform is not the first organization of its kind. Numbers USA, the Federation for American Immigration and Project for Immigration Reform — now the Institute for Sound Public Policy — have raised the claim that immigration hurts Black labor.

In response to a question on the aim of his new organization, Chip also discussed how immigration impacts Black men’s job options, noting that some of them “leave their wives because they can’t find employment.”

“And there’s a lot of good research out there about that,” Chip said, according to Politico, “but it’s not really getting the attention it needs in part because anytime you come out and suggest to limit immigration, the first thing the woke left does is accuse you of being a white nationalist.”

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