Meet Jason Richwine, White Nationalist At the Heritage Foundation

Jeb Bush and Hispanic Republicans are pushing back against the Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine. Richwine is a researcher at the bogus think tank. Richwine's Harvard dissertation made the outlandlish claim that Hispanics have lower IQs. Bush and the Hispanic Network sent out this press release.

WASHINGTON, DC – Members of the Hispanic Leadership Network’s (HLN) National Advisory Committee released the following statement regarding the inflammatory remarks on immigrants’ intelligence by the Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine. The HLN Advisory Committee signees are: Governor Jeb Bush, Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin, Mario Rodriguez, Massey Villarreal, Jovita Carranza and HLN's executive director, Jennifer S. Korn.

“The beliefs espoused by the Heritage Foundation’s Jason Richwine are ignorant and reflect a lack of understanding of our immigration system and the American immigrant experience. American Hispanics are not a community of low intelligence but rather one of entrepreneurship and upward mobility. This lack of understanding, from the author himself of Heritage’s immigration study, only further discredits their already controversial and flawed findings. This is particularly disappointing because of our respect for the Heritage Foundation and their traditions of high standards, rigorous work, and support for immigration reform. We look forward to the next Heritage study that excludes such obvious biases and flawed starting points.”

The Hispanic Leadership Network began its efforts in 2011 and strives to engage the Hispanic community on center-right issues that will restore opportunity and prosperity in America.

If you are wondering if Richwine is a racist then wonder no more. Richwine has written for the website AlternativeRight.com. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented the website's history of racism.

At “Alternative Right,” Spencer’s senior contributing editors are Peter Brimelow and Paul Gottfried. Brimelow founded VDARE.com, an anti-immigrant website, and he has described “Alternative Right” as a project of the VDARE Foundation. Gottfried has been a contributor to “Taki’s Magazine” and has spoken at conferences of the white nationalist American Renaissance magazine, whose editor has written that black people are incapable of sustaining any kind of civilization. Gottfried gave a speech at the inaugural meeting of the H.L. Mencken Club in November 2008 titled, “The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right.” Brimelow was the keynote speaker at that event, and Spencer the master of ceremonies. Spencer and Gottfried also appeared together last October on “The Political Cesspool,” a racist and anti-Semitic radio program.

One of the bloggers at “Alternative Right” is Richard Hoste, who recently wrote that “low-IQ Mexican immigration is the greatest threat to America.” He also wrote: “Schools should stop wasting time trying to close achievement gaps. And not only do whites have nothing to feel guilty about, they are the best thing to ever happen to blacks. Even ignoring race, humanity will not move forward through equality or by raising up the really stupid to the level of just plain stupid.” Finally, Hoste had this pithy observation: “While there’s more miscegenation [interracial sex] than in the past … we should be heartened that white teenage girls aren’t passing themselves around in black neighborhoods.”

On the AlternativeRight.com website made the claim that if Hispanic immigrants are allowed to become U.S. citizens then their children will become harden criminals.

An even more serious problem with Unz's analysis is his glossing over of the generational issue. U.S.-born Hispanics are much more likely to be incarcerated than foreign-born Hispanics. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, this is a finding that is well known to researchers in the field, and it implies that Hispanic crime will become more of a problem as time goes on, not less.

While neighborhoods with mostly first-generation Hispanics do not have a large crime problem, entrenched Hispanic communities are usually more dangerous. In many of Unz's most prominent examples of low-crime Hispanic communities -- Silicon Valley, the Jackson Heights section of Queens, even Los Angeles proper -- the adult Hispanic population is primarily immigrant.

Richwine makes the bizarre argument Hispanic crime is skyrocket the the better educated and more economically mobile they become.

Unz adds: "There actually does exist a connection between poverty and crime ... and ... there is every reason to expect this crime rate will drop further as Hispanics continue to move up the economic ladder." Wrong. Consider again what happens between the first and second generations. The children of Hispanic immigrants are much wealthier and better educated than their parents, but they also commit crimes at higher rates. The poverty-crime correlation here is negative, not positive.

The fact that the Heritage Foundation would hire Richwine says much about the credibility of their think tank.