The parent's "This" indeed refers to the "150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants Wit..." in TFA.

But as the parent explicitly mentions, "this" (the indian immigrants issue" is "ONE OF" the penalties that the US pays.

He then proceeds and explicitly mentions the larger issue they discuss, which is "the illegal immigration issue".

It's not really hard to parse the obvious fact that the parent expands the scope to the overall issue:

"THIS (the Indian wait issue in TFA) is ONE OF the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ISSUE".

Obviously he speaks of the "illegal immigration issue" at large.

He was making a claim based on his experience with people asking for the kind of reform he'd like to see (e.g. stricter rules).

In casual conversation absolute statements ("anyone") are not to be taken at face value, but (through the principle of charity) as the person meaning "in many -or most- cases".

>Whenever I see someone make that claim, in my experience it's because they've been in favor of racist policies and when called out on it

One can be an isolationist ("no more immigration", "we have enough people already", "priority to local workers and building a local skilled workforce as opposed to importing cheaper foreign labor") without being motivated by racial concerns -- and yet in many cases they will still be labelled a racist.