Disgraced former President Donald Trump cited statistics at his Wildwood, New Jersey, campaign rally, further fueling the controversy surrounding a Republican lawmaker’s proposal to stop treating undocumented immigrants as human beings.
Notoriously racist New Jersey Assemblyman Paul Kanitra sparked intense controversy with his proposal to strip undocumented immigrants of their humanity and deny them recognition as individuals by excluding them from the census data used in allocating congressional and state legislative representation.
Kanitra argues that such a move is necessary to ensure fairness and accuracy in representation, but critics have condemned the plan as both flawed and inhumane.
Kanitra’s proposal gained attention after he released a report detailing what he claims is the significant cost of unauthorized immigrants to New Jersey residents.
His report, however, is rife with inaccuracies stemming from a reliance on data from organizations with controversial ties and poor math.
The report was also criticized for using dehumanizing language.
Kanitra’s proposed scheme to send New Jersey National Guard troops to the Mexican border would have been a costly and unnecessary proposition. A plan to send 22 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers and up to 200 National Guard members was estimated to cost that state $2.2 million.
In the largest New Jersey Army National Guard deployment since 2008, approximately 1,500 soldiers from the 44th Infantry Brigade Combat Team were sent on January 14, 2024, to Iraq, Syria, and Libya as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the United States military’s war against the Islamic State.
The United States Border Patrol is responsible for patrolling the nearly 6,000 miles long US-Mexico border, which is , as well as over 2,000 miles of coastal waters. The BP has more than 20,000 agents who work around the clock to control illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
A bipartisan team os senators negotiated for four months to produce a comprehensive immigration reform bill that gave Republicans everything they wanted but support for the measure collapsed when GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate yielded to objections presumptive presidential nominee, disgraced former president Donald Trump.
Trump said he did not want President Biden to get credit for solving the problem at the southern border.
During a recent trip to the Texas-Mexico border, the Ocean County Republican purportedly gathered data that he used to calculate the financial burden of illegal immigration on New Jersey residents.
The report, which Kanitra based on information from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), has drawn criticism for that organization’s classification as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Critics point to FAIR’s history of promoting anti-Latino and anti-Catholic sentiments, as well as its ties to white supremacist groups.
The Bridge Initiative, a multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed at Georgetown University, found that “Although FAIR describes itself as ‘free of party loyalties,’ it has been criticized for publishing false information on immigration. In 2017, the right-leaning CATO Institute described a FAIR study on the impact of illegal immigration as ‘fatally flawed.’ FAIR’s Twitter account frequently retweets articles by Breitbart News and The Daily Wire. Steven Bannon has claimed that Breitbart is a ‘platform for the alt-right,’ and The Daily Wire is a news site founded by Ben Shapiro, who has a history of making derogatory, generalizing, and inflammatory comments about Muslims, Arabs, African Americans, transgender people, and others.”
The Bridge Initiative also reports, ” A number of FAIR’s current and former employees are connected to white nationalists such as Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor, and have previously provided a platform for anti-Muslim actors Robert Spencer and Sebastian Gorka.”
Despite Kanitra’s assertions, immigrant advocacy groups emphasize that immigrants are human beings deserving of dignity and respect. The American Civil Liberties Union highlights that labeling individuals as “illegal” goes against international human rights principles, as no person can be deemed illegal.
Kanitra’s estimate that ten percent of New Jersey residents are undocumented immigrants has been met with skepticism, particularly given FAIR’s contentious reputation. Critics argue that Kanitra’s proposal is based on flawed data and fails to acknowledge the contributions that immigrants make to society.
In response to Kanitra’s proposal, advocacy groups like the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University have criticized FAIR for disseminating false information on immigration. They argue that Kanitra’s reliance on FAIR’s data is misguided and risks perpetuating harmful stereotypes about immigrants.
Despite the backlash, Kanitra remains steadfast in his call for policy changes to address what he perceives as the negative impact of illegal immigration. He advocates for an overhaul of federal, state, and local programs that benefit undocumented immigrants, including ending education subsidies and medical assistance.
Kanitra’s proposal has reignited the contentious debate over immigration policy in New Jersey and beyond. As the discussion continues, advocates on both sides are grappling with how best to balance concerns about fairness, legality, and humanity in addressing the complex issue of immigration.
While Kanitra was mayor, an ABC News analysis of FBI arrest records and population data indicated Black people were about 38 times more likely to be arrested than white people in Point Pleasant Beach in 2018, far outpacing any other department reporting statistics to the FBI in New Jersey.
Also while he was mayor of the shore community, Kanitra called in backup from the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department and police from other municipalities when a predominantly Black crowd of people from the urban areas in North Jersey arrived to unwind together at the beach.
“Point Pleasant Beach is not going to be anyone’s dumping ground no matter where they are from or what they look like,” said Kanitra, who claimed his town was “treated like a toilet” by “a bunch of disrespectful young people looking for a good time and not caring at all how they acted in the process.”