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Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream
Groups:
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – Washington D.C. |
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.
 Controversy over FAIR’s extremist ties dates back to its founder, John Tanton, a pioneer of the anti-immigrant movement. Tanton founded several other organizations, including U.S. English, a group that seeks to make English the official language of the United States. He publishes The Social Contract, an anti-immigration journal whose Website links to a number of extremist sites, including: VDare, a Website that publishes racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant articles authored by extremists; American Border Patrol, the virulently anti-Hispanic border vigilante group whose leader, Glenn Spencer,, claimed that the Mexican government is “sponsoring the invasion of the United States with hostile intent,” and the Minutemen, a loose network of local chapters around the country, whose primary goal is to keep undocumented immigrants from Mexico out of the United States. The more extreme Minutemen chapters advocate patrols of the Mexican-American border by armed volunteers.
An article in the Spring 2007 issue of The Social Contract lauds Sam Francis, a deceased white supremacist, as a “formidable and articulate champion.” Tanton remains on the FAIR Board of Directors. In 1997, Tanton told the Detroit Free Press that if the borders are not secured, America will be overrun by people “defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs.”
FAIR received mainstream media coverage in April 2007 by co-sponsoring “Hold Their Feet to the Fire,” a series of anti-immigrant events in Washington, D.C., that brought together several members of Congress, anti-immigration groups, media figures, border vigilante groups, and citizen activists from around the country. Through press conferences, continuous radio broadcasting from over 35 hosts, lobbying training and demonstrations, participants voiced their opposition to the pending immigration legislation in the 110th Congress and heard from many of the figures who inject ugly stereotypes into the national immigration debate.
Rick Oltman, while acting as FAIR’s Western Field Director, spoke at a Minuteman rally in Arizona in April 2006; he also presented the Minuteman group with a lantern to signify that the immigrants are coming “by land.” A May 2006 Los Angeles Times article discussed a meeting between Oltman, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens president Michelle Dallacroce, and Rusty Childress, leader of United for Sovereign America, an anti-immigrant group that attracts extremists to its events.
FAIR’s current Western Field Representative is Joseph Turner, who also heads the California-based anti-immigrant group Save Our State, whose rallies have attracted the support of Minutemen and neo-Nazis. In the Save Our State “Partner Web Sites” section, Turner includes several Minuteman groups and American Border Patrol.
During a May 2005 appearance on The Political Cesspool, a Tennessee-based radio show hosted by white supremacist James Edwards that routinely features neo-Nazis and white supremacists as guests, Turner stated, “I am supportive of the Minuteman Project in general...”
Furthermore, FAIR reportedly accepted over $1 million in the 1980s and 1990s from The Pioneer Fund, a foundation that promotes the study of eugenics. Racist scholar J. Philippe Rushton, The Pioneer Fund’s current president, spoke at a 2006 conference organized by American Renaissance, a white supremacist publication and Website.
Like many other anti-immigrant groups, FAIR opposes legal immigration as well as illegal immigration. Unlike many other anti-immigrant groups, however, FAIR is much more explicit about this opposition. It has consistently supported a moratorium on legal immigration to the United States, suggesting that only spouses and young children of U.S. citizens and “some” legitimate refugees should be allowed into the country.
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