Immigration debate“Alt-right” leader calls on Trump to freeze immigration for fifty years

One of the leaders of the alt-right movement has called for a 50-year freeze on immigration to the United States, saying the country needs to “take a break” in order to “become a nation again.”

Richard Spencer, founder of the white supremacist National Policy Institute think tank, which sponsored the weekend Washington, D.C. gathering of alt-right followers, said the proposal was a “fundamental policy” the movement would put forward under the Trump administration.

Spencer, who coined the phrase “alt-right” in 2008, told the conference: “America needs to take a break. One fundamental policy we’re going to put forward is a break on all immigration, particularly non-European immigration, for a fifty year period.”

Politico reports that after his words were met with a round of applause, Spencer continued: “This is something that’s certainly out in front of anything Donald Trump said. He focused on illegal immigration, a wall and so on. But this is something that I think can be quite attractive and can really resonate - certainly with his voters — but I think it can resonate with all other people.”

Before introducing the proposal, Spencer said the United States had a “history of taking a break and forming a nation,” noting that a similar policy was enacted during the twentieth century. He said: “Just as there is a history of mass immigration, certainly in recent times, there’s also a history of taking a break and forming a nation.

“The first immigration law in the United States in 1790 restricted immigration to European people. In 1924 America restricted immigration and we effectively had a net neutral, and sometimes even net negative immigration, for forty years until 1965 when that was reversed.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in that forty year period we saw the height of America culture, the height of American national identity, ethnic regional rivalries dissolved. You actually had the height of America as a geo-political power.

“The age of mass immigration and multiculturalism has been an age of division and fragmentation. Let’s become a nation again, we’ve lived through this experience and we can change it.”

Spencer also declared that the alt-right movement was going to “change the world” and described America as a “white country designed for ourselves.” He said: “The alt-right is here, the alt-right is not going anywhere, the alt-right is going to change the world.

“America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

To a round of applause, he then stated that white people are a superior race, asserting: “To be white is to be a creator, an explorer, a conqueror. We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.”

Politico notes that when Spencer had finished his speech, several audience members had outstretched their arms in a Nazi salute, with one or two shouting: “Heil the people! Heil victory.”

Most of the 200 attendees at the conference, in which the representatives of various alt-right groups outlies their plan of action for the next few years, were white young men.

Spencer’s Twitter account, and the accounts of several other participants at the conference, were suspended by Twitter last week for violating the company’s hate speech policies.

The alt-right movement is a loose coalition of extremist and populist groups which reject mainstream Conservatism. The alt-right groups share white supremacism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and antifeminism – and the followers of these groups are particularly prone to believe in the most bizarre conspiracy theories.

Politico notes that most Americans had little knowledge of these groups until they came to prominence this year by vocally endorsing the candidacy of Donald Trump, and by Trump appearing to endorse at least some positions advocated by alt-right groups.

Stephen Bannon, the publisher of Breitbart News, the alt-right’s most prominent platform, was Trump’s campaign CEO. Trump announced that Bannon would move to the White House the serve as his senior adviser and chief strategist.