Michelle Fields Criticizes Ann Coulter's Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric She Herself Has Used

In a Fox News Latino op-ed, regular Fox News guest Michelle Fields slammed what she called Ann Coulter's focus on “offensive stereotypes” to argue against immigration reform. Fields wrote that Coulter's comments that Latinos are “the bottom of the barrel” and that “it's impossible to 'turn Mexico's underclass into Republicans'” are “insulting” and makes it “clear that she doesn't know very much about the Latino community or immigration.”

Coulter, who regularly appears on Fox to decry immigration reform, has indeed said many of those things Fields accuses her of. But so has Fields.

Fields, who is now a correspondent for NextGeneration.TV -- whose director of programming is the virulently anti-immigrant former Rep. Allen West (a Fox News contributor) -- has her own history of making derogatory claims about immigrants.

In her op-ed, Fields criticized Coulter's claim that immigration reform “will turn America into a 'dumping ground for the world's welfare cases' because Latino immigrants are reliant on welfare,” noting that a study by the Cato Institute found that immigrants don't use government benefits at higher rates than native-born citizens.

While Fields correctly points out what numerous studies have shown -- that there is no link between immigrants and high use of government benefits -- Fields has helped perpetuate that myth.

Fields has criticized a U.S. government website for new immigrants that provides information about government benefit programs because it creates “a people that's not self-sufficient.” When one of Field's co-panelists rejected her characterization of immigrants, Fields responded, “but if there are all these programs for them, it's tempting.”

Fields has also referred to undocumented immigrants as “illegals” and once even defended use of the word, saying “if illegals are so upset” by the term, they should “return to their country” to get visas. In addition, Fields has criticized a tax credit that benefits the American children of undocumented immigrants and attacked a Colorado college's decision to allow undocumented students in the state to pay a resident rate.