Arizona Republican party asks lawmaker to resign after he called immigration ‘existential threat’

The Arizona Republican party called on a state lawmaker to resign after he delivered controversial remarks about integration in public schools earlier this week.

During a speech on Monday, Rep. David Stringer (R) said “there aren’t enough white kids to go around,” according to The Associated Press.

“I am calling on him to resign immediately,” Arizona GOP Chairman Jonathan Lines said in a statement following the comments. “These words have no place in our party, or in our state.”

The development comes one day after a clip of Stringer’s speech was circulated across news outlets and social media. 

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“Sixty percent of public school children in the state of Arizona today are minorities. That complicates racial integration because there aren’t enough white kids to go around,” Stringer said in the speech.

Stringer went on to say that “immigration today represents an existential threat to the United States.” 

“If we don’t do something about immigration very, very soon, the demographics of our country will be irrevocably changed and we will be a very different country and we will not be the country you were born into,” he continued. 

Stringer said he apologized to “anyone he offended” during an interview with the Arizona Capital Times, but he also stated his plans to post the full video of his comments to allow people to hear the speech in its entirety.

“I maybe touched a third rail of politics but what I said is accurate,” Stringer told the Capital Times. “Anybody that talks about this in this way is shut down and called a racist. I’m speaking the truth. Diversity may be a great thing, there might be a lot of advantages, I’m not arguing against diversity at all, but no country can be demographically transformed without any political or social consequences.”