Watch: Progressive gives Tucker Carlson surprising reason why US should restrict immigration

Most liberals reject President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and support instituting policies that make it easy for immigrants to come to the United States, but Philip Cafaro, a philosophy professor at Colorado State University, says progressives should support restricting immigration to save the planet.

On Friday evening’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on the Fox News Channel, Cafaro told host Tucker Carlson because immigration is the primary cause of U.S. population growth, which Cafaro believes is hurting the environment, immigration should be reduced. Cafaro is the author of a book on the subject, titled “How Many Is Too Many?: The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States.”

“Well, the argument is relatively straightforward, Tucker,” Cafaro said. “Immigration, currently, is driving U.S. population growth, and population growth is a big part of many of our environmental problems in the United States. So, part of the progressive argument has to do with that. If you care about creating a sustainable environment, you need to look at immigration-driven population growth.”

Carlson said he’s puzzled why many environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, don’t support rolling back immigration and asked Cafaro he knew why the seemingly apparent contradiction exists within the environmental movement.

“Well, years ago, if you go back to the [1970s] and even into the 1980s, the Sierra Club did have a policy that the U.S. should reduce immigration to levels that would stabilize the U.S. population,” Cafaro said. “But over time, that got to be a harder and harder argument to make, for complex reasons, and really, starting about 20 years ago, environmental leaders dropped the ball on population. So, there are quite a few of us, though, who still believe it’s an important component of sustainability, and we’re trying to make that case.”

Many environmental groups that support increasing immigration also promote policies to control population in other ways. For instance, in February, the president of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, told Carlson the organization is pro-abortion in part because abortion “helps to address the number of people we have on this planet.”

On Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity distributed “endangered species” condoms at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, according to a report by WTTW-TV. According to the CBD’s Endangered Species Condoms project website, the packaging of the condoms was designed to raise awareness about the relationship between population growth and the survival of animals. In addition to providing colorful artwork of endangered species, the condom packaging includes short slogans to discourage having kids, such as, “Wrap with care … save the polar bear.”