Some Anti-Immigration Sentiment Fueled by Hate Groups
Feature Story by Christina Stanley - 10/31/2007
At an Oct. 18 conference, entitled 'Strange Bed Fellows? Anti-immigration Organizations and Hate Groups', panelists highlighted the need for a conversation on immigration which is not rooted in racial hatred. The moderator of the event Henry Fernandez, Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress, said: "The mainstream press has failed to set the context and is thus misshaping the immigration debate."
To date, Congress has been unable to reach consensus on comprehensive immigration reform initiatives. A 2005 Kennedy-McCain bill never made significant progress in the Senate, and a 2007 bill backed by President Bush was never brought to a final vote due to lack of support.
Devin Burghart, a panelist and Director of the Building Democracy Initiative with The Center for New Community, said the racism fueled the anti-immigration debate, noting that between January 2005 and January 2007 there was a 600 percent increase in the number of anti-immigration groups; two-thirds of which have ties to white supremacist groups, or have leaders with a history of white supremacist support.
Burghart said that most citizens are unaware of the murky pasts of some of the anti-immigration groups and spokespersons with racist connections. As a result many of these organizations are funded by unsuspecting donors.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), for example, with an annual budget of about 15 million dollars, has issued statements calling for the abolition of the 14th Amendment to prevent "anchor babies," (a derogatory term that refers to children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants).
Another panelist, Mark Potok, Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said anti-immigration groups were "nativist extremist" movement. Because immigration is easily discussed in terms of skin color, many hate groups and eugenics supporters have exploited the issue to promote their ideas under the guise of anti-immigration. Potok asks, in reference to the leaders of the anti-immigration movement, "Who are these people really?"
The mainstream press has accepted many people as experts on immigration who are really racists in disguise, said Potok. He said Lou Dobbs gave credence to Chris Simcox, president of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, an anti-immigration group, by having him on his CNN television program, Lou Dobbs Tonight. Simcox once claimed that the Chinese army was massing on the Mexican border, and that Mexico, in union with American Chicanos, is trying to recapture the Southwest.
White supremacist anti-immigration groups are also tied to an increase in hate crimes involving immigrants. The anti-immigration groups that are tacitly supporting these actions are a threat to pluralism, said Potok.
"Protecting civil rights is never supposed to be easy. But in the end, the way we treat non-citizens in this country now, will be the real yardstick by which we measure our nation's commitment to upholding the civil rights of everyone," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
