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Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream
Groups:
Mothers Against Illegal Aliens - Arizona |
In January 2006, Michelle Dallacroce founded Mothers Against Illegal Aliens (MAIA), a group that, in her words, was formed “to show every mother in America what is going on on our streets.” Through media appearances, connections with extremists, and personal appearances at anti-immigration events, Dallacroce echoes the anti-immigrant themes of a “mass invasion” of unintelligent, disrespectful, conspiratorial criminals while targeting her message to women and families. She focuses on immigration as a threat to American children and denigrates the values of immigrant families, branding immigrant children as “dumb” and violent.
 The Introduction to the MAIA Website states, "Our beautiful Nation has been turned into a jungle by the mass invasion of illegal aliens - the streets of America; the neighborhoods and communities where we live; the malls and stores where we shop; the schools where our LEGAL [emphasis in original] children attend - and yes, even the churches where we worship--are now the Citadels of fear, bigotry, racism, physical danger and hate! The LEGAL children of America's 21st century have become the scapegoats and the victims of this invasion of illegal aliens...As evidenced by Spanish homework being sent home with our American Children."
Dallacroce constantly voices anger over the integration of American and immigrant children in schools. In a May 2006 interview on CNN’s Nancy Grace, she lamented,"My children, as well as my grandchildren and everyone’s legal citizen children in our schools, are being affected, dumbed down."
She has also claimed that immigrant children are not only “dumb” but raised to be disrespectful and violent. Following an immigration rights Labor Day rally at the Arizona State Capitol in September 2006, media accounts described a woman screaming at a child through a bull horn, surrounded by counter-protestors who referred to Mexicans as “dogs.” In an Internet post, Dallacroce admitted, "I am the lady who is being talked about…We have a prime example of what kind of children are being born and what they are being taught by their illegal alien parents to disobey and disrespect American citizens. This 9 year old boy is being taught to be a violent and hostile child. If this was my child I would have washed his mouth out with soap or better yet, I would have put a lot of tabasco sauce in his mouth..."
 In an April 2006 appearance on FOX News’s Hannity and Colmes, Dallacroce made several derogatory statements about Hispanics, then conjured the anti-immigrant conspiracy theory that Mexicans are engaged in a plot to reclaim the American Southwest. She explained, “What we have got coming over here, that people don't respect the American people. They don't respect America. They want to take over the Southwest...They're using our hospitals…they're tearing apart our country.”
Dallacroce publicly supports and works alongside the border vigilante Minutemen. The Minutemen are 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.
Dallacroce counter-protested with the Minutemen at a pro-immigrant rally at the Arizona State Capitol in September 2006. That same month, Dallacroce spoke at a Minuteman rally in Arizona and in February 2006, she spoke at a Minuteman rally at the U.S. Capitol. According to the Arizona Daily Star, at a February 2006 MAIA demonstration in Arizona, Dallacroce stated, "By us supporting the Minuteman...we working [sic] together to protect our families.”
In addition to her work with the Minutemen, Dallacroce has appeared with white supremacist J.T. Ready. When Ready organized a rally at the Phoenix Mexican Consulate in April 2006, Dallacroce was an invited speaker. Ready, who advocates placing landmines across the border, was a Minuteman volunteer. He attends Klan and neo-Nazi events and was a “special guest speaker” at a September 2007 protest against the Mexican Consulate in Omaha, Nebraska, sponsored by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.
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