Dear Commons Community,

Jason Richwine, the co-author of a controversial Heritage Foundation report on immigration resigned yesterday.   As reported in the Huffington Post: 

“Jason Richwine let us know he’s decided to resign from his position. He’s no longer employed by Heritage,” spokesman Daniel Woltornist said in an email to HuffPost.

The report put the cost of immigration reform at a whopping $6.3 trillion. Though Heritage’s 2007 report was one of the reasons an earlier immigration bill failed, the 2013 report was widely mocked.

Richwine also came under fire this week for arguing in his Harvard dissertation that Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. have substantially lower IQs than whites.  Harvard accepted Richwine’s 2009 dissertation for a doctorate in public policy. In it, he spoke of the “growing Hispanic underclass.”

“Superior performance on basic economic indicators is to be expected from later generations, who go to American schools, learn English, and become better acquainted with the culture,” he wrote. “Despite built-in advantages, too many Hispanic natives are not adhering to standards of behavior that separate middle and working class neighborhoods from the barrio.”

“There can be little dispute that post 1965-immigration has brought a larger and increasingly visible Hispanic underclass to the United States, yet the underlying reasons for its existence cannot be understood without considering IQ,” he wrote.

It seems to me that some of the higher-ups at Heritage should also consider leaving for allowing the report to go public.  But at Heritage it is politics first, truth second!

Tony