Yeah, I work every day in New York. I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

This is the standard thing that xenophobes do when talking about how bad immigration is. They tell someone to take a loot at X. Where X is a place the listener probably hasn't been to and doesn't really know anything about.

It's like if I was talking to a bunch of factory workers in Kentucky about how bad marijuana is and said "just take a look at Holland!" They'd have no fucking idea what it's like in Holland but someone claiming to be an authority just told them the situation was concerning.

Step 0: Stop calling him a Xenophobe because he said something you don't agree with, or he said something wrong.

My step 0: see things for what they are and don't apologize for callings bigots bigots.

Maybe he is a bigot. But you have a choice about whether you want to make the discussion personal and permanent (you are a bigot) or transient and focused on ideas (I think one of your assumptions is wrong).

The sky is blue but it's not necessarily productive to say so in every conversation.