Last week, when the Heritage Foundation released its cost-estimate of the immigration bill currently being marked-up in Congress, it aimed in part to highlight the flaws in the reform, claiming it would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion. Instead, the Heritage Foundation drew attention to its own flaws.
The report had already been discredited by many conservatives when the Washington Post revealed that one of the report’s co-authors, Jason Richwine, had written a doctoral thesis at Harvard University in which he argued that Hispanic immigrants have lower IQ’s than whites.
Richwine resigned from the Heritage Foundation on Friday, but the think tank did little to temper the flames of the controversy, issuing a statement which said: “It is our longstanding policy not to discuss internal personnel matters.”
On Monday, on NOW with Alex Wagner, the panel discussed the fallout from the Heritage report and what it means for its influence on the issue of immigration.