This weekend, Trump-supporting conservative bomb-thrower Tomi Lahren appeared on Fox News and gave what was one of her more ignorant rants against illegal immigration to date.
During her appearance on Fox’s Watters’ World, Lahren defended comments from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who recently made headlines after he said that immigrants who come to the U.S. illegally “don’t integrate well” and “don’t have skills.”
Speaking to Fox host Jesse Watters, Lahren declared that accepting people into the U.S. with “low skills and low education” and who don’t speak English is “not what this country is based on.”
“We don’t believe in importing poverty,” Lahren said. “Trust me, I live in California. We have enough poverty, we have enough issues — we don’t need anymore.”
.@TomiLahren: "You don't just come into this country with low skills, low education, not understanding the language and come into our country because someone says it makes them feel nice. That's not what this country is based on." @WattersWorld pic.twitter.com/Dux0cABHar
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 13, 2018
Lahren’s worlds immediately went viral and sparked a backlash, part of which came from Jennifer Mendelsohn, who is the founder of resistancegenealogy.com, a project that focuses on the family trees of people who are anti-immigrant.
According to Mendelsohn’s findings, Lahren’s ancestors immigrated to this country also not knowing how to speak English.
“Tomi’s 3x great-grandmother had been here for 41 years and still spoke German,” Mendelsohn tweeted. “Her 2nd great-grandmother had been here for 10 yrs. Spoke no English. Her great-grandfather’s 1895 baptism from MN? Recorded in Norwegian.”
https://twitter.com/CleverTitleTK/status/995680514974650368
Mendelsohn also revealed that Lahren’s great-great grandfather forged his naturalization papers and was indicted by a grand jury as a result. She later noted that he was acquitted.
Others on Twitter chimed in to mock and condemn Lahren’s remarks:
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/995653222739202050
https://twitter.com/f2photo/status/995468689347633152
Actually, that's exactly what America is based on. Perhaps you might learn some of your own country's history before opining (ignorantly) on national news.
— Cindy Paquette (@bluespherevic) May 13, 2018
But you can be low skill and get on Fox News. https://t.co/PY8soiJ0Bx
— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) May 14, 2018
I can’t believe they discovered that Tomi Lahren’s birth parents were a swastika and an AR-15. pic.twitter.com/atFwr8uozt
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) May 14, 2018
Tomi is already here, how do you explain her lack of skill and education
— Not Another Donald Trump Parody (@PenceConscience) May 13, 2018
Ummmm actually it is! Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.
— Badfish (@therealBworthy) May 13, 2018
In a later tweet, Mendelsohn explained her motivations.
“This is not about playing gotcha,” she tweeted. “But as long as people like Lahren continue to push a specious agenda that suggests today’s immigrants are somehow wholly different from previous ones, I’ll keep showing just how alike they really are.”
Featured image via screen grab/YouTube
