Among the losers in this year's elections were the anti-immigrant lobby with their message of hate. Marginalized, they are now engaging in a full scale blood-bath of blame amongst their followers. But those of us who want progressive and humanitarian immigration policies cannot rest. We are hopeful that the incoming administration and the new Congress will undo the worst aspects of the Bush administration draconian anti-immigrant policies.
As we have discussed in previous posts, the anti-immigrant lobby is not a grass-roots movement fed by the energies of a large constituency. Organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and NumbersUSA, amongst others are really just a shell game of front organizations designed to hide their extremist agenda from the general public, legislators and the media. The latest incarnation of this web of hate is a seemingly neutral Immigration news index by the name of Immigration News Daily. But idexer.com is anything but a neutral RSS feed of immigration stories. The stores featured in this index have distinctly anti-immigrant slant, the links all lead to the usual suspect of extremist anti-immigrant organizations and their FAQ's all have prominent anti-immigrant slant.
As with other front organizations funded by FAIR and its coteries of extremist supporters, idexer.com is merely another way to infiltrate the media and the public sphere in the guise of a moderate or neutral site on immigration. The mainstream media will reference this site, it pops up as number one when you Google "immigration news," until it is shamed into exposing its extreme agenda of hate. So mainstream media and bloggers, file idexer.com and "Immigration News Daily," under "hate groups."
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The Southern Poverty Law Center HateWatch project is reporting that the racist anti-immigrant advocate, John Tanton is funding ProEnglish which has given $19,000 and legal advice to Nashville English First, which hopes to force a countywide vote on a proposal to limit all Metro Nashville government business, publications and meetings to English, with no exceptions for health or safety. Both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have listed John Tanton and his network of white–supremacist anti-immigrant organizations as hate groups. Eristic Ragemail has written extensively on the racist roots of the anti-immigrant movement. Further information onJohn Tanton and his nativist network can be found John Tanton’s Network of Hate: How A Small Group of the Wealthy founded the Contemporary Nativist Wave and at Eugenics and Nativism: Joined at the Hip and at The Lies, Distortions and Fabrications of F.A.I.R. Any organization that Tanton touches should be viewed with considerable skepticism.
Contrary to Lou Dobbs, and other cable-TV hate-mongers, the current nativist wave is not an organic movement of Americans “fed up illegal immigration.” The better part of the current nativist movement was orchestrated by a retired Michigan opthamolagist by the name of John Tanton and a small group of wealthy donors. Starting in 1979, Tanton orchestrated a series of moves to establish a network of non-profit groups, advocacy organizations and media propaganda fronts. The foremost of these groups is the Federation for Immigration Control (“FAIR”) which continues to enjoy legitimacy amongst the mainstream media despite clear ties to racist and extremist organizations. The network that Tanton founded continues to function and the fronts that he established continue to be treated as indepenent entities, despite their shared kinship.
It was Tanton who founded the anti-immigration movement's most powerful institution, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”). Tanton’s interest in immigration was marked in the beginning by an explicitly racial argument. “To govern is to populate,” Tanton wrote in 1986. “Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? … As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?”
Tanton founded FAIR in 1979. Between 1982 and 1994, it received more than $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund. A little-known foundation created in 1937, the Pioneer Fund likes to benignly describe its origins in “the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition, and the eugenics movement.” In the late 1930s, though, it frankly admired Hitler. Today, it still bankrolls groups such as the racist American Renaissance and the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF) in Virginia.
[A] single -- but not seamless -- web connects ideological white supremacists, armed border vigilantes, nativist think tanks, political action committees, and Republican Party officeholders in an anti-immigrant movement of growing significance. Formal policy deliberations may include debates on the fiscal costs of providing social services to undocumented workers, the supposed downward pressure immigrant labor exerts on the marketplace, the net costs and benefits of immigration, and the national-security problems evinced by holes in our borders. But at gatherings like these, the raw issues are race and national identity.
Differences between legal and illegal immigrants fade into a generalized belief that a brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking tidal wave is about to swamp the white-skinned population of the United States. The attempt to stop undocumented workers at the borders morphs into a campaign to end immigration altogether, to save our supposedly white nation from demographic ruin. As Tancredo told interviewer John Hawkins, “[If] we don't control immigration, legal and illegal, we will eventually reach the point where it won't be what kind of a nation we are, balkanized or united; we will have to face the fact that we are no longer a nation at all … .
In addition, FAIR's political action committee, the U.S. Immigration Reform PAC, routinely receives significant contributions from Tanton and his wife. FAIR's PAC has contributed more than a quarter-million dollars for and against candidates since 1999. In 2000, it spent more than $30,000 against Republican Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan, an Arab American, who lost that general election. Not surprisingly, it has also given the virulently anti-immigrant, Tom Tancredo $15,000 over the years, according to Federal Election Commission documents. The PAC had Peter Gemma on its payroll. Gemma is a denizen of Holocaust-denial meetings and other hardcore anti-Semitic venues, according to Devin Burghart, the author of numerous reports on anti-immigrant groups for the Center for New Community in Chicago.
"The New Nativists" In a notorious set of memos from 1986, Tanton set forth the vision and strategy of what was to become the anti-immigrant enterprise. In the most extensive memo, Tanton laid out a series of queries to guide the movement:
Is apartheid in Southern California’s future? The democraphic picture in South Africa now is startlingly similar to what we’ll see in California in 2030. In Southern Africa, a White minority owns the property, has the best jobs and education, has the political power, and speaks one language. A non-White majority has poor education, jobs and income, owns little property, is on its way to political power and speaks a different language. (The official language policy in South Africa is bilingualism -- the Blacks are taught in Zulu and related tongues.)
In California of 2030, the non-Hispanic Whites and Asians will own the property, have the good jobs and education, speak one language and be mostly Protestant and "other." The Blacks and Hispanics will have the poor jobs, will lack education, own little property, speak another language and will be mainly catholic.
Do ethnic enclaves (Bouvier, p. 18) constitute resegregation? As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion? Why don’t non-Hispanic Whites have a group identity, as do Blacks, Jews, Hispanics?
[T]he Whites and Asiatics will own and manage, but will not be able to speak to the Hispanic field workers. They will need bilingual foremen. Does this sound like social peace? Or like South Africa?
Initially, Tanton’s organizations did not meet with much legislative success but the media treated them as if they were legitimate grass-roots organizations. FAIR was widely quoted on all questions bearing upon immigration and they often testified before Congress. Another element of Tanton’s plan was infiltration of Congress and the Judiciary. As set out in another 1986 strategy memo by Tanton:
Since launching FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform] in January of 1979, the board has adhered steadfastly to one of the possible models for changing U.S. immigration law and practice. Our plan emphasized the national (rather than the state and local) nature of the immigration question, and, therefore, concentrated on building a national office and staff rather than working at the grassroots.
In my judgment, grassroots work has not been a major emphasis. On the media side of this question, I believe we get high marks for good and consistent effort throughout our existence.
Financially, FAIR grew rapidly its early years. The table shows our total revenues since its founding:
Our financial growth was heavily based on a small number of major donors…
[We must] Secure appointments of our friends to positions on the Board of Immigration Appeals, to the Commissioner’s Post if Mr. Nelson leaves, as he will eventually, to other advisory boards in the INS and Justice Department.
FAIR and its sister organizations were heavily dependent on a small number of donors, most of whom had racist motivations for their contributions. The network of Tanton organization that this small group of wealthy individuals funded includes the front ograntizations.
American Immigration Control Foundation AICF, 1983, funded
American Patrol/Voice of Citizens Together 1992, funded by Tanton
California Coalition for Immigration Reform CCIR, 1994, funded by Tanton
Californians for Population Stabilization 1996, funded (founded separately in 1986) by Tanton
Center for Immigration Studies CIS, 1985, founded and funded by Tanton
Federation for American Immigration Reform FAIR, 1979, founded and funded by Tanton
NumbersUSA 1996, founded and funded by Tanton
Population-Environment Balance 1973, joined board in 1980 by Tanton
Pro English 1994, founded and funded by Tanton
ProjectUSA 1999, funded by Tanton
The Social Contract Press 1990, founded and funded by Tanton
U.S. English 1983, founded and funded by Tanton
U.S. Inc. 1982, founded and funded by Tanton
Each of these organizations keeps up a front of nominal independence despite being part of Tanton’s web. And each in turn has mingled extremist politics with its anti-immigrant rhetoric. In subsequent posts we will explore further the dark elements that make up Tanton’s Nativist movement.
John Tanton is a retired opthamologist from Michigan and is founder of various advocacy groups, the most prominent being the Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”). Founded in 1978, the Federation for American Immigration Reform blames immigrants for a host of social problems including crime, poverty, disease, urban sprawl, traffic jams, school overcrowding, racial tensions and potential terrorism. Between 1985 and 1994, FAIR accepted some $1.2 million from the racist Pioneer Fund, until bad publicity apparently convinced its leaders to desist.In 1986, a series of memos were leaked out which indicated how Tanton intended to infiltrate and influence the Federal government on immigration and just as urgently revealed the deep seated hatred that John Tanton has for Latinos, Catholics and other non-white “undesirables.”Here is one of the memos which is posted on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch website.
TO: WITAN IV Attendees
FROM: John Tanton
DATE: October 10, 1986
Here is a set of questions and statements that I hope will help guide our discussion of the non-economic consequences of immigration to California, and by extension, to the rest of the United States. These are not highly polished; I ask your indulgence.
These notes are based on reading Bouvier’s and related papers, on the WITAN III Meeting, and my own thinking over several years on the topic of assimilation and the character of American society. The assignment of subtopics to the main categories is a bit arbitrary; many of them could be moved around.
I. Political Consequences.
1. The political power between the states will change, owing to differential migration six immigrant-receiving states. The heartland will lose more political power (see appended Table I).
2. Will the newcomers vote democratic or republican, liberal or conservative, and what difference does it make? A lot, if you’re one or the other.
3. Gobernar es poplar translates "to govern is to populate," (Parsons’ [Thomas Malthus] paper, p. 10, packet sent May 8). In this society where the majority rules, does this hold? Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile?
4. Does the fact that there will be no ethnic majority, in California early in the next century mean that we will have minority coalition-type governments, with third parties? Is this good or bad, in view of the European and other experiences?
5. Shall illegal aliens be counted in the census and used to apportion congressional and state house seats, thereby granting them political power?
6. Is apartheid in Southern California’s future? The democraphic picture in South Africa now is startlingly similar to what we’ll see in California in 2030. In Southern Africa, a White minority owns the property, has the best jobs and education, has the political power, and speaks one language. A non-White majority has poor education, jobs and income, owns little property, is on its way to political power and speaks a different language. (The official language policy in South Africa is bilingualism -- the Blacks are taught in Zulu and related tongues.)
In California of 2030, the non-Hispanic Whites and Asians will own the property, have the good jobs and education, speak one language and be mostly Protestant and "other." The Blacks and Hispanics will have the poor jobs, will lack education, own little property, speak another language and will be mainly catholic. Will there be strength in this diversity? Or will this prove a social and political San Andreas Fault?
7. Illegal aliens will pay taxes to the Federal Government; their costs will mostly be local.
8. The politicians are way behind the people on these issues. This brings to mind the story told of Gandhi: he was sitting by the side of the road when a crowd went by. He said, "There go my people. I must get up and follow them, for I am their leader!"
9. Griffin Smith’s point from the Federalist Papers: It was argued that the colonies would make a good nation, as they shared a common culture and language. Nineteen eighty seven is the celebration of the adoption of the Constitution, 1988 its ratification, and 1989 the setting up of the first Federal Government. Can we tie into these discussions?
II. Cultural.
1. Will Latin American migrants bring with them thetradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.? What in fact are the characteristics of Latin American culture, versus that of the United States? See Harrison’s Washington Post article in the September 3 packet.
2. When does diversity grade over into division?
3. Will Blacks be able to improve (or even maintain) their position in the face of the Latin onslaught? (See Graph 3)
4. How will we make the transition from a dominant non-Hispanic society with a Spanish influence to a dominant Spanish society with non-Hispanic influence?
5. Do ethnic enclaves (Bouvier, p. 18) constitute resegregation? As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion? Why don’t non-Hispanic Whites have a group identity, as do Blacks, Jews, Hispanics?
6. Note that Graph 2 shows virtually all the population growth will come from immigrants and their descendants.
7. Is there a difference in the rates of assimilation between Asians and Latins?
8. Should something be said about the competing metaphors of the salad bowl and the melting pot?
9. What exactly is it that holds a diverse society together? Gerda’s paper said that in our case, it was a common language.
10. Is assimilation a function of the educational and economic level of immigrants? If so, what are the consequences of having so many ill-educated people coming in to low paying jobs?
11. We’re building in a deadly disunity. All great empires disintegrate, we want stability. (Lamm)
12. Enclaves lead to rigidity. (Hardin)
13. The theory of a moratorium: the pause in immigration between 1930-1950, combined with the assimilating experience of fighting side-by-side in the trenches in World War II, gave us a needed pause so that we could assimilate the mass of people who came in the early years of the century. Do we again need such a pause?
14. Concerning the moratorium, here are some phrases that could be used: "The pause that refreshes." "A seventh inning stretch." "Take a break, catch-up, eliminate a backlog, take a breather."
15. Perhaps mention should be made of Pacific Bell’s move to install completely separate Spanish and Chinese language phone systems in California (see May 27 packet).
16. Novak’s term "unmeltable ethnics" is probably better than some of the others that have been suggested. Similarly, ethnicity is a more acceptable term than race. It should also be noted that 50% of all Hispanic surname people on the census forms designate themselves as White. So perhaps we should speak of Hispanic Whites and non-Hispanic Whites, to further diffuse the issue. Is Anglo a better term that White? LANGUAGE IS VERY important here.
III. Conservation and Demography
1. What will be the effect on the conservation movement, which has drawn its support in the past from other than the minorities, and which has relied on the political power of the majority to pass legislative measures? As the people that groups like the Sierra Club represent go into opposition (minority political status), will many of the things they’ve worked for be lost because the new majority holds other values?
2. Can homo contraceptivus compete with homo progenitiva if borders aren’t controlled? Or is advice to limit ones family simply advice to move over and let someone else with greater reproductive powers occupy the space?
3. What are the consequences to California of the raw population growth that is coming, the ethnic change aside (see Graph 1)?
4. What is the conservation ethnic [sic] of the Asian and Latin American newcomers? Will they adopt ours or keep theirs?
5. The Sierra Club may not want to touch the immigration issue, but the immigration issue is going to touch the Sierra Club! (To mention just one group.)
6. On the demographic point: perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!
7. Do you agree with Teitelbaum’s statement, "International migration has now become an important point of intersection between the different demographic profiles of developing and developed countries"? (Fear of Population Decline, p. 134--see also pp. 111-115.)
IV. Jurisprudence
1. What are the consequences for affirmative action of the ethnic change coming along? Will the non-Hispanic Whites (NHW) have a limited number of spots in professional schools, etc. proportionate to their numbers? Or will affirmative action go beyond this (as it does now in Malaysia) to cut spots to below their proportionate share, to enable other groups to "catch-up?"
2. Anything to be said about drugs and the border?
3. Will we get more of the Napoleonic Code influence, and does it make a difference?
4. What do we demand of immigrants--or more correctly, what should we demand of them:
a. Learn our language.
b. Adopt our political ideals.
c. Assimilate and add their flavoring to our stew.
V. Education
1. What are the differences in educability between Hispanics (with their 50% dropout rate) and Asiatics (with their excellent school records and long tradition of scholarship)?
2. Where does bussing fit into the picture? Keep in mind that by 1990, over 50% of all the people under 15 years of age will be of minority status. They will also be heavily concentrated in certain geographic areas.
3. The whole bilingual education question needs to be mentioned.
VI. Race/Class Relations.
1. What will be the fate of Blacks as their numbers decline in relationship to Hispanics? As they lose political power, will they get along with the Hispanics? Relations are already heavily strained in many places.
2. What happens when we develop a new underclass, or a two-tiered economic system? Especially if the two groups can’t speak the same language! (See Bouvier and Martin Chapter 5)
3. Is resegregation taking place, in the Southern part of the state in particular?
4. Phil Martin’s point: In agriculture, the Whites and Asiatics will own and manage, but will not be able to speak to the Hispanic field workers. They will need bilingual foremen. Does this sound like social peace? Or like South Africa? Keep in mind the poor educational level of the field hands.
VII. The Economy.
I don’t think we should dwell much on the economy: I think we should try to make our contribution by talking about the non-economic consequences of immigration. Nonetheless:
1. Do high levels of immigration cut back on innovation (Bouvier, p. 27)?
2. Does it reduce the tendency and need of employers to hire current minority teens (Bouvier, p. 27)?
3. Is there a downward pressure on labor standards in general (Bouvier, p. 28)?
4. Phil Martin’s point on the colonization of the labor market. (Chapter 5).
VIII. Retirement
1. Since the majority of the retirees will be NHW, but the workers will be minorities, will the latter be willing to pay for the care of the former? They will also have to provide the direct care: How will they get along, especially through a language barrier (Bouvier, p. 40)?
2. On the other hand, will the older and NHW groups be willing to pay the school taxes necessary to educate the burgeoning minorities?
3. The Federal Government may have to pay for the care of the elderly in schools--will it?
XI. Religious Consequences.
This is the most difficult of all to tackle, and perhaps should be left out. Nonetheless:
1. What are the implications of the changes shown on Graphs 2 and 3 for the separation of church and state? The Catholic Church has never been reticent on this point. If they get a majority of the voters, will they pitch out this concept?
2. Same question for parochial schools versus public schools.
3. Same question for the topic of abortion/choice, birth control, population control.
4. Same question for the role of women.
5. Will Catholicism bought in from Mexico be in the American or the European model? The latter is much more casual.
6. Keep in mind that many of the Vietnamese coming in are also Catholic.
7. Is there anything to be said about the Eastern religions that will come along with the Asiatics?
X. Mexico and Latin America(Chapter 7, Bouvier & Martin).
Perhaps the main thing to be addressed here is whether or not shutting off the escape valve will lead to revolution, or whether keeping it open can avert it.
XI. Additional Demographic Items.
Teitelbaum’s phrase, "A region of low-native fertility combined with high immigration of high-fertility people does not make for compatible trend lines!"
Finally, this is all obviously dangerous territory, but the problem is not going to go away. Who can open it up? The question is analogous to Nixon’s opening of China: he could do it, Hubert Humphrey could not have. Similarly, the issues we’re touching on here must be broached by liberals. The conservatives simply cannot do it without tainting the whole subject.
I think the answers to many of these questions depend on how well people assimilate. This, in turn, depends heavily on whether the parent society has made up its mind that assimilation is a good thing (we’re confused on this point now), whether it works at assimilating newcomers (as Canada and Australia do by following them longitudinally), whether the people coming want to assimilate (not all of them do), and, even if all the factors are favorable, whether the numbers are small enough so as not to overwhelm the assimilative process.
Good luck to us all!
Intelligence Report
Summer 2002
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The Federation for American Immigration Reform (“FAIR”) continues to be treated by the mainstream media as if it were a legitimate and reliable source of information. Eristic Ragemail has previously posted articles where the media will quote FAIR without elaborating on its extremist elements and more importantly on its web of lies, distortion and outright fabrications. If one has the stomach to peruse FAIR’s website, one will see a panoply of claims, all of which lack hard empirical proof or are outright fabrications of the nativist imagination.
Take for example the claim, prominently posted on all of FAIR’s web pages, that the “Census Bureau’s Projection of U.S. population in 2050 because of today’s mass immigration: 420 million.” (emphasis added) One is led to believe that the growth in U.S. population, currently at 300 million, is the result of “mass illegal immigration.” This canard is in no way supported by the Census Bureau. While it is true that the demographics of the country will continue to change, this is due in large measure to the graying of the baby boomer generation. According to the Census Bureau, the population of the U.S. will increase to 419.9 million in 2050. At that rate we would still not reach the current European Union population of 494 million (which is half our size geographically) and we would remain one of the least densely populated countries in the world.
Similarly, the FAIR website asserts, contrary to most scholarly estimates, that the current population of undocumented immigrants numbers 13 million. The well-respected Pew Research Center flatly controverts FAIR’s numbers.
As previously reported, the Center’s analysis of the March 2005 CPS shows that there were an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized migrants in the United States a year ago. Based on analysis of other data sources that offer indications of the pace of growth in the foreign-born population, the Center developed an estimate of 11.5 to 12 million for the unauthorized population as of March 2006. A full report on the estimates including a description of the methodology can be found in: Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.: Estimates Based on the March 2005
Current Population Survey (http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=61 ). As well, they blame immigrants for overcrowding schools, clogging roads, swallowing up open space, taxing the environment, and raising the cost of living for all. Never mind that the United States consumes vastly more resources than any other country in the world and has been doing so long before the current wave of nativists started looking for scapegoats. In any event, blaming sprawl and congestion on immigrants is simply ludicrous.
A perennial canard of the nativists, and of FAIR, is the wholly untrue claim that immigrants overload the welfare system (such as it is). Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for welfare no matter how poor they may be. In fact, undocumented workers, contribute more in taxes and social security payments that they will ever see. Rather than being a burden, undocumented workers actually subsidize the Social Security fund and other social programs.
One can dissect almost every issue raised by FAIR and demonstrate its falsity or distortion. So why does FAIR continue to be trusted as a source of reliable information when so much of what they put out is patently untrue? The answer lies partly in the nativist network that FAIR and other nativist groups such as NumbersUSA have built.
The Washington D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) founded in 1979, claims to work to “improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest.” Possibly due to its large size (it claims over 250,000 members and supporters), D.C. location, and exposure, elected officials look to the organization for input. To that end, FAIR boasts that it “has been called to testify on immigration bills before Congress more than any organization in America.” FAIR is more nuanced in its use of language than other anti-immigrant groups and it has been used as a resource by officials, the media and within anti-immigration policy circles. However, a close look reveals a pattern of extremist affiliations and a strategy of founding and empowering smaller groups that promote xenophobia.
Prominent in all of FAIR’s postings are click and send faxes to the media and to elected representatives. Hyperbolic and alarmist language foments their readers to save our nation. Needless to say, the pro-migrant web has not employed such measures.
More critically, why do such alarmist messages resonate with a portion of the American public? I believe, as I have stated in previous posts, that the current nativist trend is actually thinly veiled animus animus against the Latino population.
A closer look at the public record reveals that many ostensibly mainstream anti-illegal immigration organizations – including those who testified before Congress or frequently appeared on news programs – promote virulent anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Some groups have fostered links with extremist groups.
The real victims in this are Hispanic-Americans and other immigrants who are being unfairly targeted, demeaned and stereotyped."
The report cites several key tactics used by anti-immigrant groups, including:
Describing immigrants as "third world invaders," who come to America to destroy our heritage, "colonize" the country and attack our "way of life." This charge is used against Hispanics, Asians and other people of color.
Using terminology that describes immigrants as part of "hordes" that "swarm" over the border. This dehumanizing language has become common.
Portraying immigrants as carriers of diseases like leprosy, tuberculosis, Chagas disease (a potentially fatal parasitic disease), dengue fever, polio, malaria.
Depicting immigrants as criminals, murderers, rapists, terrorists, and a danger to children and families.
Propagating conspiracy theories about an alleged secret "reconquista" plot by Mexican immigrants to create a "greater Mexico" by seizing seven states in the American Southwest that once belonged to Mexico.
What groups like FAIR are really concerned about is the growth of the Latino population in this country, no matter how legitimate that population may be. This is borne out by their history of of racism and extremist associations. For example, the current posting on the extremist website, VDare is an anti-immigrant posting by FAIR board member and extremist activist, Daniel A. Collins.
Donald Collins, a member of both FAIR's board of directors and its board of advisers, has his own ties to white supremacy. Collins posts frequently to a hate website called Vdare.com, which is named after Virginia Dare (said to be the first white child born in the New World) and publishes the work of white supremacists and anti-Semites. Collins also has been published in The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, a periodical run by longtime academic racist Roger Pearson. (Pearson founded the Eugenics Society in 1963 and worked with at least one former SS officer in England. He is also the recipient of several Pioneer Fund grants.)
Collins is by no means the only bad apple of the FAIR enterprise. FAIR was founded by people who admired the eugenics practiced by the Nazis and who have well-cemented ties to white supremacist organizations.
At the center of the Tanton web is the nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most important organization fueling the backlash against immigration. Founded by Tanton in 1979, FAIR has long been marked by anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups. Recently, it has promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico's secret designs on the American Southwest and an alternative theory alleging secret plans to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada. Just last February, a senior FAIR official sought "advice" from the leaders of a racist Belgian political party.
It's no surprise that Tanton employs people with similar views. His long-time deputy, for example, is Wayne Lutton, who works out of Tanton's Petoskey offices and edits the journal, The Social Contract, published by Tanton's press. Lutton is not just linked to white supremacist ideas, many of which he publishes in his journal — he has actually held leadership positions in four white nationalist hate groups: the Council of Conservative Citizens, the National Policy Institute, and The Occidental Quarterly and American Renaissance, both racist publications. Lutton has written for the Journal of Historical Review, which specializes in Holocaust denial. Early on, Lutton and Tanton collaborated on The Immigration Invasion, a nativist screed that has been seized by Canadian border officials as hateful contraband.
FAIR's current media director, Ira Mehlman, was an adviser in 2001 and 2002, and his essay, "Grand Delusions: Open Borders Will Destroy Society," was published in the journal's pages. Today, FAIR still advertises The Social Contract on its website, saying the journal "offers in-depth studies on immigration, population, language, assimilation, environment, national unity and balance of individual rights and civil responsibilities."
[FAIR organizer, Joe] Turner made one of his more controversial remarks, amounting to a defense of white separatism. "I can make the argument that just because one believes in white separatism that that does not make them a racist," Turner wrote in 2005. "I can make the argument that someone who proclaims to be a white nationalist isn't necessarily a white supremacist. I don't think that standing up for your ‘kind' or ‘your race' makes you a bad person." The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Save Our State as a hate group since it appeared in 2005.
Turner's predecessor in the FAIR organizing post, Rick Oltman, was cut from the same cloth. Oltman has been described as a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) in the publications of that hate group, which is directly descended from the segregationist White Citizens Councils and has described blacks as "a retrograde species of humanity." He has spoken at at least one of the CCC's conferences and has taken part in one of its rallies. And he wasn't alone.
You can also watch this You Tube video put out by SPLC.
You Tube Video SPLC on FAIR
So the issue remains, with overwhelming evidence of racism, extremism and hate, why does the media continue to turn to FAIR as if it were a legitimate organization instead of a product of the David Duke mindset? This is a question that should be answered by the media and in the spirit of fair play I invite readers to fax, mail and phone these very media representatives with that question. Contact information is listed below.
Contact the Media
See that your opinion matters too!!!
CNN Mr. Jim Walton President CNN Worldwide 1 CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Fax 404-878-1727 Email: jim.walton@turner.com
Mr. Jonathan Klein President CNN U.S. 1 Time Warner Center 5th Floor New York, NY 10019 Email: jonathan.klein@cnn.com
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I admit that when I scan the newspapers for the latest news I don’t generally turn to the Kansas City Star for insight on current events.Not that I have a bias against non-national newspapers, after all, the Des Moines Register (a sister newspaper of the Star) and the Sacramento Bee manage to turn out very well-informed newspapers despite their location as second-tier cities.But the recent anti-immigrant screeds of Kansas City Star columnist, Juanell Garrett caught my attention. Ms. Garrett has clearly succumbed to Lou Dobbs disease.This malady is characterized by an irrational urge to spout outrageous claims against “illegal immigrants” and a desire to make league with neo-Nazis like Patrick Buchanan and Peter Brimelow (host the nativist VDare website).The prognosis for Lou Dobbs disease is usually grim: slow deterioration of rational faculties and a need to rant incoherently about “illegals.”Let’s examine the findings.
In a post on June 2, 2008, entitled, “Illegal Immigration Notes,” Garrett begins her posting, as most Nativists do, by claiming entitlement based on ancestral lineage as an immigrant of long-standing.This, of course, has nothing to do with a rational discussion of immigration, but everything to do with her bona-fides as a “true native American.”Unlike, second-generation nativists, Michelle Malkin and Tom Tancredo, Garrett’s ancestors, she alleges, go back to the American Revolution and are the product of “legal immigration,” the latter claim being hard to verify given that pretty much any bumpkin from Europe could hop a vessel to the former English colony and set up a land claim.(Let us note that Garrett would never accord the same level of legitimacy to the Spanish and Mexicans who were inhabiting the better part of what is now the Western United States long before the Mayflower set sail.)Having established that he is not illegal, Garret proceeds to rant on, what is to any astute observer, the tired claims of the nativist crowd.Maybe these stale claims are new to Mr. Garrett, but they have been floating around the web and cable “news shows” for years and have been repeatedly debunked.Were it not for the nutwing network on the web and cable “news,” these nativist canards would have died on the vine of the poison plant that generated them.
Among the familiar, and discredited canards, advanced by Garrett, are:1) this generation of immigrants are different than previous immigrants; 2) “alien blood” is threating “our vitality”;3) immigrants are taxing our “welfare system”; 4) Mexican immigrants refuse to assimilate (presumably unlike previous immigrants);5) “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants only invites more immigrants.Finally, Garret posts a great deal of nonsense by such well known nativists such as Tom Tancredo and Patrick Buchanan.
All of these claims have been discredited and discussed on Eristic Ragemail (http://eristic-ragemail.blogspot.com).I invite readers to peruse the relevant postings and the supporting documentation. Unlike Garrett, the posts reference neutral and or primary sources.Garrett’s column relies entirely on anti-immigrant advocates.Worse, most of his sources are certified nutwings which have been identified as hate groups by such venerable institutions as the Southern Poverty Law Center’s, Hatewatch and the Anti-Defamation League.The sources cited by Garrett would not pass muster on a high school freshman’s report, much less in any credible newspaper.
To cite just a couple of examples, Garrett cites Jim Corsi, who according to SPLC’s Hate Watch Intelligence report:
Insult-mongerer Jerome Corsi has made a career of peddling conspiracy theories in far-right publications and his own books, variously attacking 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, undocumented immigrants, and alleged secret plans to merge Mexico, the United States and Canada into a so-called "North American Union."
Corsi also is a bigot. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Media Matters for America compiled comments Corsi made on the far-right FreeRepublic website. There, Corsi described Islam as "a worthless, dangerous, Satanic religion," described Muslims as "boy bumpers" and "women haters," and suggested that "boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press." And he mocked Kerry's supposed Jewish ancestry. The comments set off an uproar, with Unfit for Command co-author O'Neill falsely claiming to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough that Corsi was merely "an editor" of the book, not the co-author, in an attempt to put distance between himself and Corsi.
Garrett relies entirely on extreme Nativists who have been discredited as proponents of a hate agenda.Other extremist nutwings cited by Garrett are Tom Tancredo, Patrick Buchanan and Jim Gilchrist.The VDare website, referenced by Garrett, is very forthright in its racist and anti-Semitic agenda and has been identified as a hate group by both the SPLC and the ADL.The ADL has stated that “VDare, [is] a Website that publishes racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant articles authored by extremists…”In fact, not a singe source cited by Garrett could be described as informed, mainstream or neutral.Without exception all of the sources relied upon by Garrett to make her anti-immigrant arguments come from Nativists, hate-groups or extremists.
I invite readers to analyse the network of hate-groups that make up the Nativist fringe on Eristic ragemail.(http://eristic-ragemail.blogspot.com)It is quite unfortunate that a legitimate newspaper like the Kansas City Star should give a forum for the rantings of these hate groups under the guise of discussing illegal immigration.
Dallas girl falsely accused Latino students of assaulting her after she posted a sign, “If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration.” One of the best commentaries on this very telling episode comes from the Canadian Free Press website which features a column by Bob Parks from Massachusetts, entitled “The Crime or the Cover Up.”
Immigrant activist groups nationwide are outraged that innocent students could have been rousted, based on the word of a lying, attention-starved, little white girl. Many of those against illegal immigration got caught up in the sensational nature of the story, only to share the eggs on their faces for believing a story they wanted to be true.
CBS’s Katie Couric Tries to Save her Job by Playing Nativist Card
It is widely rumored that CBS Nightly News, celebrity anchor, Katie Couric is on the verge of hitting the pavement due to tanking ratings for the news program. “Lay off Katie Couric! CBS is to blame Network used a celebrity ploy to boost ratings and it completely backfired” by Michael Ventre In a gambit straight from the Lou Dobbs school of journalism, Couric fed up anti-immigrant red meat in a piece entitled, “Illegal Immigrant Births - At Your Expense.”The piece gave no balance and failed to present a counter-point to the clear anti-immigrant slant of the piece.
What CBS News has done is incredibly irresponsible and we need to pressure the hell out of them. I've been told that pro-migrant organizations have started to turn the screws and ask the producers exactly what they were thinking – the producers have given little indication of what they were thinking, if anything at all.
PLEASE LET CBS KNOW THAT THIS KIND OF HACK REPORTING IS UNACCPETABLE AND UNPROFESSIONAL:
Villaraigosa Finally Speaks out Against Workplace Raids by ICE
LA Mayor, Villaraigosa tells Homeland Security chief that agents should target criminal gang members and not legitimate businesses. The Mayor notes that by targeting legitimate businesses, ICE raids are having a detrimental effect on the economy. Not surprisingly, ICE has indicated that American Apparel Company, which has taken a very public pro-immigrant stance, is in the Fed’s cross-hairs.Nothing like payback for exercising your First Amendment rights, no doubt Chertoff and his ICE thugs would love to make an example of American Apparel for speaking out.
Orwellian SAVE Act Still Live and Threatening Every American’s Civil Liberties
As previously mentioned, the Republican hate machine knows no boundaries when it comes to abridging civil liberties in the name of immigration control.For everyone who still gives a damn about that thing called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights here is a rundown of the worst aspects of the SAVE legislation.
Oppose HR 4088, "The Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement
Act of 2007" Bill, known as the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act is a cynical and politically motivated attack on immigrant families and a foolish burden on our fragile economy.
It would require approximately six million employers to verify the work status of more than 130 million workers within four years. If passed, the SAVE Act would place a tremendous financial and regulatory burden on businesses and employees at a time when our economy is already fragile. This is a foolish proposal at a time when our economy is already fragile.
The federal database that would be used to enforce the SAVE Act is known to have an unacceptably high error rate – nearly 10 percent! An independent study of the E-Verify/Basic Pilot program found that the ½ of 1 percent of employers that use the program often misuse it, and that the data base would need to be significantly improved before it can be expanded.
This is a recipe for a full scale assault on worker protections and anti-discrimination laws. Nothing in this legislation addresses real world concerns that this new mandate would lead to employers firing workers involved in union organizing drives or would have the resources to ensure that they are not discriminating against Latinos or other immigrants applying for employment.
It will represent an unprecedented intrusion into the lives of millions of United States workers, regardless of their status. If this law were in place now, the errors in the SSA database alone could result in 2.5 million people a year being misidentified as unauthorized for employment. Workers, including U.S. citizens, will get caught in this faulty system and lose their jobs. The "SAVE Act" contains no assurances that government databases will be accurate and updated, no privacy protections for the vast amounts of personal information to be handled by employers, and no recourse for workers who are wrongfully denied employment.
It would make it easier for the government to put religious and humanitarian workers behind bars for so-called "alien smuggling." Humanitarian workers – like nuns, priests, volunteers – would be constantly forced to navigate this confusing legislation, or run the risk of arrest, fines and imprisonment.
HATE GROUPS CONTINUE TO GET TREATED AS MAINSTREAM BY MEDIA
Despite a well-documented history of hatred and racism, the media continues to treat the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) as a mainstream advocacy group.In this one week, the New York Times, the Seattle Times and the Los Angeles Times all quoted FAIR as if it were merely an immigration advocacy group.These outlets need to identify this group as a hate group, the way they identify the Aryan Nation or stop using them as sources.
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Two issues of note. San Francisco, which long ago declared itself a sanctuary city for immigrants, has taken the step of publicizing that undocumented immigrants need not fear the police and that social services will continue to be extended to all regardless of immigrant status. The measure is note-worthy as many local law enforcement agencies have become arms of the Federal immigration enforcement authorities. ICE is actively promoting so-called local law enforcement in the war of attrition against immigrant communities. Many of the media stories on San Francisco's move, had a decidedly derisive tone, as might be expected. The Los Angeles Times played the story fairly straight. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-welcome4apr04,1,7762391.story
The New York Times laid out the facts in detail and then they did something which is absolutely abhorrent. In search for a soundbite they turned to the hate group the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)..
“I guess it’s what you expect from San Francisco,” said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington, which lobbies for stronger immigration enforcement. “But now, not only are they helping people break the law of the federal government, they are advertising it. I don’t know of any other city actually looking for illegal immigrants.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/us/06immig.html?ref=us This is akin to asking a member of the Aryan Nations for a quote on the latest policy initiatives by Barack Obama. Why does the so-called respectable media continue to treat hate groups as respectable advocates? The answer is that in the present climate, where Nativist hate-speech is deemed to be mainstream opinion, such groups are merely reflecting the Republican paradigm: a paradigm of hate.
In case anyone doubts that FAIR and other nativist groups are really hate groups in league with racists, we will again recount that group's move from mainstream advocacy in the 80s to a full out hate group in the last 10 years.
Heidie Beirich exposes the racist strain that informs the "respected" advocates of anti-immigrant hysteria such as the organization Federation for American Immigration Reform ("FAIR") which is often quoted in mainstream media such as the New York Times or National Public Radio. Beirich dissects the tangle of neo-Nazis who populate seemingly mainstream anti-immigrant organizations.
At the center of the Tanton web is the nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most important organization fueling the backlash against immigration. Founded by Tanton in 1979, FAIR has long been marked by anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups. Recently, it has promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico's secret designs on the American Southwest and an alternative theory alleging secret plans to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada. Just last February, FAIR President Dan Stein sought "advice" from the leaders of a racist Belgian political party.
(Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts' - http://www.alternet.org/story/70489/?page=entire)
FAIR, which has consistently been treated as a mainstream advocacy group is rife with eugenitist nuts:
Probably the best-known evidence of FAIR's extremism is its acceptance of funds from a notorious, New York City-based hate group, the Pioneer Fund. In the mid-1980s, when FAIR's budgets were still in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the group reached out to Pioneer Fund, which was established in 1937 to promote the racial stock of the original colonists, finance studies of race and intelligence, and foster policies of "racial betterment." (Pioneer has concentrated on studies meant to show that blacks are less intelligent than whites, but it has also backed nativist groups like ProjectUSA, run by former FAIR board member Craig Nelsen.)
Marginal extremist groups are identified as such in most media, however, such is not the case with FAIR and other anti-immigrant groups.The problem is that such groups hijack the seemingly legitimate fears of otherwise rational citizens for their racist agenda.While a portion of the U.S. population is racist many who have been duped into supporting organizations like FAIR do not realize the contribution to organizations that preach hatred.
Hiring Haters
In late 2006, FAIR hired as its western field representative, a key organizing position, a man named Joseph Turner. Turner was likely attractive to FAIR because he wrote what turned out to be a sort of model anti-illegal immigrant ordinance for the city of San Bernardino, Calif. Based on Turner's work, FAIR wrote a version of the law that is now promoted to many other cities. (The law almost certainly violates the Constitution, but that has not stopped many municipalities' interest.)
Turner made one of his more controversial remarks, amounting to a defense of white separatism. "I can make the argument that just because one believes in white separatism that that does not make them a racist," Turner wrote in 2005. "I can make the argument that someone who proclaims to be a white nationalist isn't necessarily a white supremacist. I don't think that standing up for your 'kind' or 'your race' makes you a bad person." The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Save Our State as a hate group since it appeared in 2005.
Turner's predecessor in the FAIR organizing post, Rick Oltman, was cut from the same cloth. Oltman has been described as a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) in the publications of that hate group, which is directly descended from the segregationist White Citizens Councils and has described blacks as "a retrograde species of humanity."
The New York Times must be held accountable for relying on such suspect sources. Clearly, they cannot quote spokespeople from such hate groups without identifying them as such.
The Seattle Times published an excellent article on what happens to deportees in Mexico, "Life after an illegal immigrant is sent home," by Lornet Turnbull. Unfortunately, the Seattle Times also quoted the same spokesman from FAIR in response to an opposing soundbite. As we've stated, the media continues to treat racist hate groups as mere advocacy organizations. Either, they should stop using such sources or identify them for what they are: hate groups.
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Geraldo Rivera has written a book, entitled His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S., which deals in large measure with the current debate over immigration.I have read excerpts of the book as well as the positions advanced in the book but this is not meant as a review of Rivera’s book.Ratherthan reviewing the book, I am interested in exploring what the reaction to the book says about the opponents of immigration reform.Rivera was recently interviewed on National Public Radio.I am in complete agreement with at least two of the propositions set forth by Rivera.The first proposition is that much of the anti-immigrant animus is motivated by the changing demographics of America, to wit the growing Latino population in the United States.The second proposition is that the current wave of immigration is no different than previous waves of Italian, Irish, or Jewish immigration.As such, the arguments advanced today by nativists are remarkably similar to the xenophobic sentiments of yesteryear.
Amazon.com provides a nice forum for reactions to Rivera’s book.The discussion on Amazon is un-moderated and hence the comments are mostly unfiltered.The “book reviews” and the comment reactions to those reviews are open to anyone with an internet connection.
I anticipated that many of the “reviewers” had not read the book but would use it as an opportunity to rant on the issue of immigration.I was not disappointed.At most, half a dozen contributors on the Amazon site had actually read the book.The rest, mostly of an anti-immigrant persuasion, were merely using the book as the means to express their positions (such as they are).
What I found most interesting was how few of these people actually endeavored to deal with the issues raised by Rivera’s book.What they lack in substance they make up for in vitriol.The responses form an exemplar of the nativist sentiment.The comments are a road-map to the nativist community and its sources.
Every legitimate review (i.e., people who had actually read the book) garnered the same group of nativist respondents (who clearly had no interest in reading the book, let alone discussing its tenets).The most vocal and revealing commentators included Clarisa “Heather” McDonald,Zeezil, “stoptheinvasion”, JDunn58 and most self-incriminating, E. Baumgartner, of Jewish descent and from New York City.I will refer to this group as the nativists.Several rational people tried to inject reason into the debate, but as the old saw goes, you can’t reason with a madman.
In all of the comments, there was a tendency to ratchet up the number of alleged illegal immigrants in this country.Most respected commentators put the number of undocumented immigrants living in this country at between 8 and 12 million.Zeezil declared that “there are 28 million illegal aliens here,” a number which would indicate that more than half of the Hispanic population is here illegally, since the Census indicates that Hispanic citizens number 40 million.Clarisa McDonald argues as well that the country is experiencing an “invasion of 28 million illegal aliens.”Clearly, both Zeezil and Clarisa are getting their numbers from a similar source.What sources do Zeezil and Clarisa consult for their information?
Clarisa and Zeezil provide their sources and encourage others to do likewise. They share a common source of information: www.numbersusa.com with Roy Beck, Ann Manetes, Rosemary Jenks,www.fairus.org with Dan Stein, www.thesocialcontract.com and www.commonsenseonmassimmigration.com and www.proenglish.org, www.capsweb.org with Dr. Diana Hull, www.firecoalition.com with Jason Mrochek, www.wehirealiens.com, www.alipac.us with William Gheen, www.patriotunion.org with Xelan Bonn, www.grassfire.org with Steve Elliot, www.carryingcapacity.org and www.balance.org with David Durham.As for authorities on the subject the nativists, they recommend Governor Richard D. Lamm, Tom Tancredo, Dr. Albert Bartlett, Roy Beck, Terry Anderson, William Gheen, Jason Mrochek, David Durham, Dr. Diana Hull, Rosemary Jenks, Fred Elbel, Mike McGarry, Russell Pearce, Don Collins and David Pimental.No surprises here.Not exactly a list of unbiased sources of information, but well worth watching as sources of hatred.
Those readers who actually read the book and commented substantively on its positions were viciously attacked personally.
The most telling of these nativists, E. Baumgartner, was a Jew from New York, who quite freely disclosed his bigotries.When told that Geraldo Rivera is half Jewish (Rivera’s mother is Jewish), Baumgartner had no problems maligning his own kind.“Oh, he's half Jewish, well that fits. I'm Jewish and I can say that I'm sometimes embarrassed to be Jewish. A lot of Jews have no real loyalty to this country; they are only loyal to Israel. America is simply a place they live and work.”
Baumgartner makes no bones of his bigotry and unlawful discrimination.
My brother-in-law owns 18 apartment buildings in the Chicago area. He will not rent to hispanics because of their [sic] repuatation. Most of his landlord friends feel the same way. He says, "as soon as Mexicans move in, they take a toll on the building. Their kids get involved in gangs or their kids have friends in gangs who visit and spray graffiti everywhere, crime goes up, etc". He continues, "also, if you have a few Mexican families in your building, it makes it a lot harder to rent to non-hispanics because they too know Mexicans reputation, so then you would get stuck and have to rent to more hispanics because you have to keep your building full. Of course though, with each new Mexican family, the building gradually turns into a mini-barrio and then your property value goes way down, this is why I won't allow even one hispanic tenant in any of my buildings".
So why are Mexicans so bad for the neighborhood? And is one really a bigot for making such generalizations?Not according to Baumgartner.
I wouldn't call it "bigotry", it's more like well grounded distaste for Mexicans (at least the one's in the USA). Every Mexican neighborhood here is a gang infested, graffiti scrawled, crime ridden garbage pit. If Mexicans were more like Asian immigrants, nobody would care one bit about their skin color. Do you see people complaining about Asians? Hardly ever. … … “Mexican parasites”…
Mexicans have been in the USA for more than 160 years and they still have the crappiest jobs, the highest poverty rate, the highest crime rate, endless gangs, highest teen [sic] pregancy rate, highest high school dropout rate (56% nationally). Mexicans will never be anything but an underclass, as they have always been. Sure a handful of Mexicans go to college, but overall, they are extremely low achievers. … “Have you ever been to a predominately hispanic neighborhood in the USA? They are all garbage pits. I can assure you that NOBODY wants to live near Mexicans, they are so dirty and their kids often get involved in gangs. That is the truth about your people. …
Well, now that we have that cleared that up, we can see that the problem is not illegal immigration but rather the presence of dirty Mexicans.What we need to check is not the illegal entry of Mexicans but the growth of the Mexican population.Perhaps we should deport all Mexicans, native-born, 5th or 6th generation, we need to get rid of all of “them Mexican parasites.”Is it unfair to lump nativists with the naked bigotry of Baumgartner?Not according to Rivera’s book.And on this point I have to wholeheartedly agree.One need not read too far into most nativist postings to see that their target is not undocumented immigrants but rather the Hispanic community as a whole.This is what bothers Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo, Michelle Malkin, and the rest of the nativist hacks.Bigotry: pure and simple.
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