The debate over controlling illegal immigration has pulsed throughout election cycles for decades. But recently, a more radical strain of anti-immigrant thought, which advocates lower legal immigration levels, is gaining some momentum.

In the past few months, new advertisements which promote a decrease in legal immigration rates have found their way to the airways of Fox News, a channel founded by legal immigrant Rupert Murdoch.

The ads are sponsored by advocacy groups like John Tanton’s NumbersUSA, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), who argue that even legal immigrants pose a threat to American jobs and America’s stability.

The controversial ads seem at odds with a new study released by the National Foundation for American Policy in December which found that nearly half of the top 50 venture-backed firms in the country had foreign-born founders, and that more than 75 percent of such companies had foreign-born professionals as part of their “key management personnel.”

The movement to lower legal immigration also counters the platforms of many of the Republican frontrunners in the Presidential debate, like Mitt Romney, who described himself in a September debate as a “great proponent of legal immigration.”

“Many of you are living proof of the unique strength of America that is constantly renewed by new Americans,” he said to his audience. “The promise of America has brought some of the world’s best and brightest to our shores,” he added.

In the advertisement by CAPS, the spokesperson says that legal immigrants “take good jobs in places like California,” while many Californians are out of work. And FAIR argues that legal immigration has reached an all time high, posing a threat to American prosperity.

Read the full story at the Huffington Post