"Mad" Miles
05-01-2010, 12:50 PM
(The following was forwarded to the [email protected] listserv yesterday. I googled the author and found this link (https://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/04/28/hate-group-lawyer-drafted-arizona-anti-immigrant-law/). [Twenty-five minutes after first posting this.] I just read the comments/discussion that follows the article, on the SPLC website. It's not bad. In fact it shows a level of maturity higher than similar debates here in waccobb-land!)
Hate Group Lawyer Drafted Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Law
by Heidi Beirich on April 28, 2010
Arizona's controversial anti-immigrant law was written by a lawyer at the
legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007. The law, a recipe for racial profiling, would make the failure
to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to
detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Kris Kobach, the
author of the Arizona law and a lawyer at FAIR's Immigration Reform Law
Institute, has been the prime mover behind numerous ordinances that seek to
punish those who aid and abet "illegal aliens," including laws adopted in
Farmer"s Branch, Texas, and Hazelton, Pa. The laws have not done well and
have cost some localities immense sums of money to defend. Recently, the
city of Albertville, Ala., refused to work with Kobach on just such an
ordinance, reportedly because of the high legal costs incurred by these
other communities.
Before joining FAIR, Kobach served as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's
top immigration adviser. He then moved on to take charge of Department of
Justice efforts to tighten border security after the 9/11 attacks. There, he
developed a program the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System
that called for close monitoring of men from Arab and Muslim nations, even
legal U.S. residents. The program collapsed due to complaints of racial
profiling and discrimination. Given Kobach's history with racial profiling,
it is particularly alarming that he was tapped by Maricopa County, Ariz.,
Sheriff Joe Arpaio in February to train his officers. A federal grand jury
investigation is under way amid a slew of complaints that Arpaio used racial
profiling techniques to round up suspected undocumented immigrants. The
grand jury is also reportedly looking at whether Arpaio used his office to
target political opponents. FAIR's poison is now spreading. Legislation
similar to Arizona's has been introduced in Texas, and six other states are
considering doing so.
Itıs not surprising to find a group like FAIR behind this repugnant law.
FAIR has an extensive track record of racism and bigotry. The group, for
example, has accepted $1.2 million from the racist Pioneer Fund, a
foundation established to promote the genes of white colonials and fund
studies of race, intelligence and genetics. FAIR has employed key staffers
who have also joined white supremacist groups; it has board members who
write regularly for hate publications; it promotes racist conspiracy
theories about Latino immigrants; and it has produced television programming
featuring white nationalists. FAIR has been dominated for much of its life
by its racist founder and current board member, John Tanton, who has written
that "for European-American society and culture to persist requires a
European-American majority, and a clear one at that." Tantonıs role model
for FAIR is John Trevor Sr., founder of the racist American Coalition of
Patriotic Societies and a key architect of the racially restrictive
Immigration Act of 1924. Trevor also distributed pro-Nazi propaganda and
warned shrilly of "diabolical Jewish control" of America. Tanton once said
Trevor should serve as FAIR's "guidepost to what we must follow again this
time."
FAIR's president, Dan Stein, has warned that immigrants are engaged in
"competitive breeding" aimed at diminishing white power. He led efforts to
win funding from the Pioneer Fund, saying in 1993 that his "job [was] to get
every dime of Pioneerıs money." Stein also served as editorial adviser to
Tanton's hate journal, The Social Contract, at a time when it ran its
ugliest edition ever, "Europhobia: The Hostility Toward European-Descended
Americans." The issue's lead article argued that multiculturalism was
replacing "successful Euro-American culture" with "dysfunctional Third World
cultures." Stein has declined to offer any criticism of FAIR's founder,
instead characterizing Tanton last September as a "Renaissance man." The
principal sponsor of the Arizona law, state Sen. Russell Pearce, has his own
history of hate. In 2006, Pearce forwarded an email to his supporters from
the neo-Nazi National Alliance titled "Who Rules America?" The article
criticized the media for promoting multiculturalism and racial equality, and
for presenting the Holocaust as fact. More recently, Pearce has been
photographed hugging J.T. Ready, a Phoenix-area resident who is a member of
the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.
Hate Group Lawyer Drafted Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Law
by Heidi Beirich on April 28, 2010
Arizona's controversial anti-immigrant law was written by a lawyer at the
legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007. The law, a recipe for racial profiling, would make the failure
to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to
detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Kris Kobach, the
author of the Arizona law and a lawyer at FAIR's Immigration Reform Law
Institute, has been the prime mover behind numerous ordinances that seek to
punish those who aid and abet "illegal aliens," including laws adopted in
Farmer"s Branch, Texas, and Hazelton, Pa. The laws have not done well and
have cost some localities immense sums of money to defend. Recently, the
city of Albertville, Ala., refused to work with Kobach on just such an
ordinance, reportedly because of the high legal costs incurred by these
other communities.
Before joining FAIR, Kobach served as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's
top immigration adviser. He then moved on to take charge of Department of
Justice efforts to tighten border security after the 9/11 attacks. There, he
developed a program the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System
that called for close monitoring of men from Arab and Muslim nations, even
legal U.S. residents. The program collapsed due to complaints of racial
profiling and discrimination. Given Kobach's history with racial profiling,
it is particularly alarming that he was tapped by Maricopa County, Ariz.,
Sheriff Joe Arpaio in February to train his officers. A federal grand jury
investigation is under way amid a slew of complaints that Arpaio used racial
profiling techniques to round up suspected undocumented immigrants. The
grand jury is also reportedly looking at whether Arpaio used his office to
target political opponents. FAIR's poison is now spreading. Legislation
similar to Arizona's has been introduced in Texas, and six other states are
considering doing so.
Itıs not surprising to find a group like FAIR behind this repugnant law.
FAIR has an extensive track record of racism and bigotry. The group, for
example, has accepted $1.2 million from the racist Pioneer Fund, a
foundation established to promote the genes of white colonials and fund
studies of race, intelligence and genetics. FAIR has employed key staffers
who have also joined white supremacist groups; it has board members who
write regularly for hate publications; it promotes racist conspiracy
theories about Latino immigrants; and it has produced television programming
featuring white nationalists. FAIR has been dominated for much of its life
by its racist founder and current board member, John Tanton, who has written
that "for European-American society and culture to persist requires a
European-American majority, and a clear one at that." Tantonıs role model
for FAIR is John Trevor Sr., founder of the racist American Coalition of
Patriotic Societies and a key architect of the racially restrictive
Immigration Act of 1924. Trevor also distributed pro-Nazi propaganda and
warned shrilly of "diabolical Jewish control" of America. Tanton once said
Trevor should serve as FAIR's "guidepost to what we must follow again this
time."
FAIR's president, Dan Stein, has warned that immigrants are engaged in
"competitive breeding" aimed at diminishing white power. He led efforts to
win funding from the Pioneer Fund, saying in 1993 that his "job [was] to get
every dime of Pioneerıs money." Stein also served as editorial adviser to
Tanton's hate journal, The Social Contract, at a time when it ran its
ugliest edition ever, "Europhobia: The Hostility Toward European-Descended
Americans." The issue's lead article argued that multiculturalism was
replacing "successful Euro-American culture" with "dysfunctional Third World
cultures." Stein has declined to offer any criticism of FAIR's founder,
instead characterizing Tanton last September as a "Renaissance man." The
principal sponsor of the Arizona law, state Sen. Russell Pearce, has his own
history of hate. In 2006, Pearce forwarded an email to his supporters from
the neo-Nazi National Alliance titled "Who Rules America?" The article
criticized the media for promoting multiculturalism and racial equality, and
for presenting the Holocaust as fact. More recently, Pearce has been
photographed hugging J.T. Ready, a Phoenix-area resident who is a member of
the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.