Mick Mulvaney says the United States is 'desperate' for 'more immigrants'

Mick Mulvaney.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

At a private event in England on Wednesday night, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said the U.S. economy needs more immigrants to keep growing.

The Washington Post obtained audio of Mulvaney's remarks, made at the Oxford Union. He told the crowd that the United States is "desperate — desperate — for more people. We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we've had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants." He stressed that they must come in a "legal fashion."

President Trump is surrounded by anti-immigration hardliners like senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, who wants to curtail both legal and illegal immigration, and others who argue that immigrants increase wage competition against U.S. workers. Last year, Trump said the U.S. is "full," and people trying to cross the southern border need to "turn around." Mulvaney said the president might have an "anti-immigrant" reputation, the Post reports, but Trump actually wants to lure more foreign workers to the U.S.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.