January 15, 2016

We Just Heard the Dumbest Comment About Immigration of the Campaign


Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum offered a spirited defense of mass deportations at Thursday’s Republican undercard debate in South Carolina. Only he didn’t call it deportation. Instead, he explained, immigration officials would “export America” back to Latin America. Sure, kids who were raised in the United States would be forcibly relocated, but their knowledge of English and capitalism could pay dividends for them down the road in their home countries:

When we say we need to send people back, I mean we send people back. Let me just make one point. I was in Storm Lake, Iowa, the other day near a Tyson’s plant. Ninety-one percent of the kids that go to the elementary school there are minority kids. And they said, ‘Well, what are you gonna do with all these people, their families, they’ve lived here a long time.’ I said I’m gonna give ’em a gift. I’m gonna give them the gift of being able to help the country they were born in, and we’re gonna export America. The education they were able to receive, they learned about the English language, they learned about capitalism, they learned about democracy. You want to stop the flow of immigrants? Let’s send 6 million Mexicans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans back into their country so they can start a renaissance in their country so they won’t be coming here anymore!

This is the worst study abroad program ever.

Master image: Marc Nozell/Flickr

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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