Birther pioneer Jerome Corsi: Impeach Obama for immigration reform

The right-wing conspiracy theorist is once again calling for the president's removal from office

Published May 31, 2014 4:00PM (EDT)

 (AP)
(AP)

This article was originally published by The Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Jerome Corsi, the right-wing conspiracy theorist who helped put “birtherism” on the map, is yet again calling for President Obama to be impeached. This time he’s upset about immigration reform.

Back in September, Corsi and TeaParty.org put out a video demanding Obama be removed from office. The main pretext for removal was the president’s consideration of U.S. involvement in Syria, but he also listed abortion, LGBT rights, and immigration “amnesty” as impeachable outrages.

In December, Corsi issued two more calls for Obama’s impeachment, this time related to Obamacare. And just three weeks ago, TeaParty.org called for Obama’s impeachment over the “Benghazi scandal.” The site also has a standing Obama-impeachment petitionwhich largely focuses on Benghazi.

Now, Corsi and TeaParty.org have a new (albeit recycled) rationale for demanding the president’s impeachment: Obama and congressional Democrats’ plan to push for passage of comprehensive immigration reform, known in shorthand to Corsi and his audience as “amnesty.”

Corsi believes that Obama – who is frequently criticized by immigrant rights groups for overseeingrecord levels of deportations – aims to lavish taxpayer-funded benefits on undocumented immigrants with the ultimate aim of ceasing all enforcement of immigration laws:

Count out the taxpayer money Barack Obama intends to redistribute to illegal immigrants allowed to flood the country once Congress has voted a truly open border with Mexico:

- Free education in public schools in Spanish;
- Abundant welfare payments including food stamps issued generously to all Hispanics regardless of immigration status;
- DREAM act privileges for Hispanics to get special college admission tuition breaks;
- Obamacare plus endless free medical care at Hospital emergency rooms.

The list goes on.

To push this agenda forward, Attorney General Eric Holder has followed President Obama’s instructions to stop deportations of illegal immigrants as part of a grander policy of refusing to enforce immigration laws altogether.

What Corsi is referring to, of course, is a misleading report from the nativist Center for Immigration Studies – which was widely featured on Fox News – that purported to show that the administration had released a flood of criminals, willy-nilly, from immigration detention centers. The study was widely denounced for its misleading and false data, as well as its failure to include countervailing evidence, including the fact that deportations of undocumented immigrants with criminal records have nearly doubled since 2008. This is fairly typical of CIS studies, which have a long history of distorting and falsifying data in order to reach predetermined conclusions.

Meanwhile, expect Corsi to push ahead with his futile endeavor:

Tea Party Loyalists must let Congress know that we are serious and that we intend to push for impeachment if Barack Obama and Eric Holder continue flaunting the due enforcement of our immigration laws in their politically motivated push for amnesty.


By David Neiwert

David Neiwert is an investigative journalist and author based in Seattle, whose most recent book is And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border (Nation Books). He has won a National Press Club award for his reportage on domestic terrorism, and is also known for his work as the senior editor of the popular political blog Crooks and Liars.

MORE FROM David Neiwert


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Barack Obama Immigration Reform Jerome Corsi Southern Poverty Law Center Video