A closeup of a young blonde woman with vacant eyes (Lahren) speaking into a microphone.
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Tomi Lahren’s Anti-Immigration Rant Shut Down by #ResistanceGenealogy

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Vivian Kane
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Published: May 14, 2018 05:24 pm

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Over the weekend, Fox News’ Tomi Lahren dove into another mindless anti-immigration screed.

“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,” she said. “That’s not what this country is based on.”

That’s the sort of racist, xenophobic rhetoric Lahren and others have built their careers on, painting immigration as an evil and a burden, rather than one of the basic tenets of the American ethos.

A go-to response in these kinds of instances is to point out the hypocrisy of such an inflexible anti-immigration stance seeing as this is a country of immigrants. Unless you’re Native American, your ancestors came from somewhere else.

But in Lahren’s case, the “everyone’s an immigrant” argument is especially true. And Genealogy Twitter is handing out the receipts.

Jennifer Mendelsohn launched #ResistanceGenealogy as a way to fight racist nativist rhetoric with basic history and facts. She’s researched the lineages of multiple anti-immigration Republican lawmakers and staffers, including White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Trump’s fervently xenophobic advisor Stephen Miller.

Tomi Lahren’s ancestors, like those of so many others who now vehemently oppose immigration, were not just immigrants, but “kinds” of immigrants these right wing xenophobes call out as being exceptionally damaging, like those who commit crimes.

That was in response to Lahren’s beliefs that immigrants are criminals. (Mendelsohn followed up, saying Lahren’s ancestor was acquitted by a trial jury, “but come on.”)

Similarly, these xenophobes demonize those who have a lack of English, that practice “chain migration,” and have a reliance on public services.

The Tomi Lahrens of the world love to rant about how being American is a privilege you have to work for (despite doing nothing to earn that privilege themselves), insisting only the most educated and skilled people should be allowed to enter the country (despite Lahren and those like her possessing no discernable skills), and demanding harsh reforms to our already stringent immigration policy—reforms which would have kept their ancestors from becoming citizens.

(via Jennifer Mendelsohn on Twitter, image: Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images for Politicon)

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Image of Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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