Roy Beck

Roy Howard Beck is a former journalist and anti-immigration activist who founded and has served as president of the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA since its inception in 1997.

Roy Beck
Born
Roy Howard Beck

(1948-07-12) July 12, 1948
Marshfield, Webster County
Missouri, United States
Alma materUniversity of Missouri School of Journalism (BJ)
Notable work
The Case Against Immigration
TitlePresident & Founder, NumbersUSA
Spouse(s)Shirley Anne (Neiger) Beck (m. 1970)
Children2

He is former Washington, DC bureau chief of Booth Newspapers and an environment-beat newspaper reporter, formerly with The Grand Rapids Press and The Cincinnati Enquirer.[1] Beck was also the Washington, DC editor of John Tanton's anti-immigration magazine The Social Contract.

Career

Beck is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.[2]

The New York Times credited Beck's NumbersUSA organization with applying enough pressure to U.S. Senators to defeat a comprehensive immigration bill in June 2007.[3] He has been described as a "tutor" for U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo on immigration issues.[4]

Beck has gained notable attention via a disputed[5][6] presentation where he used gumballs to show that immigration to the United States did not alleviate world poverty, because so many remained impoverished outside of the United States. The conclusion was that the United States should restrict immigration more and help the impoverished where they are, instead of allowing them to migrate to richer countries.[7] David R. Henderson, an economist at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, responded to Beck's video, "By comparing one gumball (one million people) to over 5,000 gumballs (over 5 billion people), he gets his audience thinking that one million people don’t matter because they are such a tiny fraction of 5 billion. But one million people do matter."[8] Henderson also noted that Beck makes it seem as if allowing immigration is done at a cost to Americans, but that is not what research on the issue indicates.[9]

According to the Washington Post, before Donald Trump's election to president, Beck had "been marginalized in Washington as an eccentric figure whose views some consider xenophobic or even racist."[10]

References
  1. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld (December 4, 2014). "Genial Force Behind Bitter Opposition to Immigration Overhaul". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. p. A20. Retrieved December 4, 2014.
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/us/politics/roy-h-beck-quietly-leads-a-grass-roots-army.html
  3. Pear, Robert (July 15, 2007), "Little-Known Group Claims a Win on Immigration", New York Times
  4. "Protecting their own ; Reform caucus a barometer of GOP schism on immigration."; Jonathan Tilove. San Antonio Express-News. San Antonio, Tex.: Jun 9, 2002. pg. 1G
  5. Immigration, Poverty and Gumballs, BS King, Graph Paper Diaries, January 21, 2016.
  6. Immigration, Poverty and Gumballs Part 2: The Amazing World of Gumball, BS King, Graph Paper Diaries, February 22, 2017.
  7. Ball, Molly (August 1, 2013). "The Little Group Behind the Big Fight to Stop Immigration Reform". Retrieved July 18, 2016.
  8. Henderson, David. "When Numeracy Misleads".
  9. Henderson, David. "The Other Problems with Roy Beck on Immigration".
  10. "After years on the outside, foes of legal immigration find a louder voice with Trump's election". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
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