Tucker Carlson: Immigration Has Turned Into ‘A Fake Civil Rights Issue’

Tucker Carlson speaking with attendees at the 2018 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr Commons)

Fox News host and Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson told Breitbart radio listeners Tuesday morning that the policy debate on immigration has been turned “into a fake civil rights issue.”

Carlson joined Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow for an interview on “Breitbart News Daily” on SiriusXM Patriot to discuss topical news items, including immigration—which both Marlow and Carlson make a point of stressing on their respective outlets. Marlow said it seemed like “the media’s done this bait and switch” on the issue of immigration, which he described as an “existential threat.” Carlson agreed.

“Yeah, I mean one of the most amazing kind of acts of magic I have seen conducted in my lifetime is the transformation of what is basically an economic question—you know, who lives in your country and what are their wages—into a fake civil rights issue,” Carlson said.

The issues of immigration and civil rights in America have been historically intertwined, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has reportedly raised concerns that the Trump administration’s immigration policies have been violating “due process and civil rights of migrants.”

“So, when we talk about immigration, we’re never talking about what’s actually happening, which is the effort of rich people to pay less for labor or the effort of a political party to import more voters against the will of the rest of the population,” Carlson said. “That’s what’s actually happening. This is an economic and political question.”

“Instead, we talk about compassion, and you’re a bad person if you don’t want to give this group of people a quote-unquote ‘better life,’” Carlson said. “So, like, once the conversation is framed in those terms—and it’s totally dishonest, I would argue—but you’ve lost,”

Carlson has used his position at Fox News to advance white nationalist talking points to a large conservative audience.