Roy Beck, head of NumbersUSA
On Thursday, January 17, the Sunshine Coast Daily newspaper in Australia reported on Roy Beck’s current tour of Australia, where he was set to speak with politicians and activists in at least four cities. The article features a number of quotes from Beck, head of the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA, exhibiting his usual sound-bites of immigrant-bashing. The article’s title, “Cut immigration or be like US, visiting lobbyist warns,” in fact, underscores the alarmist attitude that Beck shares with much of the contemporary anti-immigrant movement he helps lead.
For them, the United States is a cautionary tale of what transpires when the lights burning within the city on the hill do so just a bit too brightly. This is the deluded reality that lies in the essays of Garrett Hardin, like “Tragedy of the Commons” and “Lifeboat Ethics,” which have so inspired Tanton, Beck, and other leaders of the anti-immigrant movement. This is the fictional reality presented in Jean Raspail’s widely denounced and overtly racist novel, The Camp of the Saints, which Tanton’s The Social Contract Press had translated and then re-published here in the US.
Beck’s quotes in the piece, as alluded to, warn Australians of the environmental degradation and rampant over-crowding that he promises will always accompany immigrants, regardless of borders and boundaries. For example, Beck is quoted as having mentioned the following:
- “‘You still have what we’ve lost’, Mr Beck said. ‘Your immigration program will lead to more congestion, will raise house prices and reduce wage growth. Why would a Labor Party government do that’.”
- “‘Immigration-driven population growth ruins habitat and makes native animals extinct’, Mr Beck said.”
Really.
The article presents absolutely no background for Beck, however, simply defaulting to a short bio that reads as if it were submitted by Beck and NumbersUSA.
The article also makes no mention of the fact that Beck worked for years as a consultant for John Tanton’s foundation, U.S., Inc, and as Washington, DC, editor of Tanton’s white nationalist, anti-immigrant quarterly-publication, The Social Contract Journal, or that he made $837,451 in consulting fees while performing those duties between 1994 and 2001 . It also makes no mention that Tanton was integral in securing early financial support for Beck as he worked to establish NumbersUSA. It also makes no mention of the fact that Roy Beck spoke at the 1997 national gathering of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that openly refers to Blacks and African-American as “a retrograde species of humanity.” Or that Wayne Lutton, Beck’s editorial colleague at The Social Contract Press, also spoke at that same 1997 gathering, and has spoken before and written for numerous bigoted groups and their publications. Or that John Tanton, their boss and Beck’s mentor, has been infamously cited by many media outlets, not the least of which being the New York Times, as having expressed the following:
“One of my prime concerns,” he wrote to a large donor, “is about the decline of folks who look like you and me.” He warned a friend that “for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
None of that, or even that Beck is a truly controversial figure in the immigration debate here in the United States, finds its way into the article in question. This in mind, the motives of any politician or activist group who agreed to meet with Beck during his travels should be seriously questioned by their constituents and members.