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Jason Matthew Richwine is an American political commentator and author. He is best known for his controversial views on immigration and IQ. In 2013, while working for the Heritage Foundation he co-authored a controversial report released by the Foundation on the economic costs of illegal immigration to the United States which concluded that passing the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 would cost taxpayers more than $6 trillion.
Education
Richwine received his bachelor's degree in mathematics and political science from American University, graduating in 2004. He then enrolled at Harvard University, where he received his PhD in 2009 in public policy, with a dissertation entitled "IQ and Immigration Policy". This dissertation claimed that illegal Hispanic immigrants to America had lower IQs than non-Hispanic whites, and that this disparity persisted for several generations. The dissertation committee was composed of economist Richard Zeckhauser, economist George Borjas, and Christopher Jencks, the social scientist and editor of The American Prospect. Richwine subsequently wrote an article for Politico defending his dissertation and arguing that the statements it contained about ethnic differences in IQ were "scientifically unremarkable".
Career
Prior to working at Heritage, Richwine worked briefly at the American Enterprise Institute; while there, he wrote a book review in The American Conservative criticizing Richard E. Nisbett's book "Intelligence and How to Get It". In 2010, he wrote two pieces about immigration and crime for the online magazine AlternativeRight.com in response to a Ron Unz essay covering the same topic in The American Conservative. After a study co-authored by Richwine regarding the costs of illegal immigration was released by the Heritage Foundation, Washington Post reporter Dylan Matthews found the dissertation and wrote a blog post about it on May 8, 2013. Richwine resigned from the Foundation two days later.