Immigration Battle Heating Up: Group Accuses Talk Radio Hosts of Supporting "Hate Group"
By Diego Graglia &bull 9/15/09 • Categorized as Immigration News, Immigration Reform 
A talk radio event sparks an ugly exchange. (Image: FAIR)
Over 45 of “America’s finest radio hosts,” according to organizers, have converged on Washington D.C. to hold a conservative event Tuesday and Wednesday in opposition to President Obama’s health care proposal and the possibility of immigration reform.
But the event’s organizer, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is being denounced by America’s Voice, one of the leading pro-immigration lobbying organizations, as a hate group.
While both groups have long disagreed, and maintain widely divergent views on immigration, seldom have their attacks been so direct.
The FAIR event is a radio-thon called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” and it’s meant to “bring true immigration reform activists from across the country together in the nation’s capital,” the group said. It seeks to focus on “how best to close the illegal alien loophole” in the health care reform bill being considered in the House, it added.
FAIR refers to conservative claims that illegal immigrants would be able to get free health care, paid for by American taxpayers, after President Obama’s reform package becomes law. That assertion has been largely debunked by several non-partisan organizations — in its latest ruling on the matter, PolitiFact rated it as a half truth.
On Monday, America’s Voice came out blazing-guns style against FAIR in anticipation of its talk radio extravaganza. The featured story on its website read:
“FAIR, a designated hate group, is storming DC to lobby Congress this week. Their goal? To block solutions on immigration and other key reforms– to sow division and fear with lies about immigrants and the President’s plans for reform. America’s Voice has launched a video, ads, and easy ways to take action to ‘fight FAIR.’”
The hate group designation originally comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that specializes in investigating hate organizations. In 2007, SPLC said that FAIR, “almost certainly the most-quoted immigration restriction organization in America,” should not be taken seriously in the immigration debate because John Tanton, its “founder, chief ideologue and long-time funder … is a racist.”
It added,
“Key staff members have ties to white supremacist groups, some are members, and some have spoken at hate group functions.
“FAIR has accepted more than $1 million from a racist foundation devoted to studies of race and IQ, and to eugenics — the pseudo-science of breeding a better human race that was utterly discredited by the Nazi euthanasia program.
“It spreads racist conspiracy theories. Its political ads have caused numerous politicians, Democratic and Republican, to denounce it.”
In its video and on its website, America’s Voice also quoted FAIR’s director, Dan Stein, as having said,
“It’s almost like [Asians and Hispanics] are getting into competitive breeding.”
The liberal group urged readers to send letters to their representatives in Congress “to say no to FAIR, and yes to real solutions on immigration.”
Stein responded to the accusations in an interview with The Washington Post, saying they were false and outdated.
The Post’s Spencer S. Hsu wrote,
“Saying something that’s not true or telling a lie 50 times doesn’t make it more true than the first,” Stein said, noting that SPLC began attacking FAIR earlier this decade. “They’ve decided to engage in unsubstantiated, invidious name-calling, smearing millions of people in this movement who simply want to see the law enforced and, frankly, lower levels of immigration,” Stein said.
Hsu also interviewed America’s Voice executive director Frank Sharry, who said the progressive camp –smarting from the immigration debacle two years ago and the ugly health care debate taking place right now– is ready to take the fight up a notch this time:
“Now we realize it’s part political debate and . . . part culture war.”
On page 85 of his 1991 autobiography, “A Season for Justice,” SPLC founder and chief ideologue, Morris Dees brags about accepting $5,000 dollars from the Montgomery KKK to represent one of their members in federal court.
In May 1961, Klansman Claude Henley led a mob that attacked a bus carrying Freedom Riders through Alabama. Henley’s high priced lawyer beat the rap for him, however, and he walked away scott-free.
Attorney Dees, who pocketed the Klan’s $5,000 check, (about $33,000 in today’s money), has gotten more Klansmen OUT of prison than he’s ever sent there.
John Tanton may be no saint, but you won’t find “Klan lawyer” on HIS resume.
Earlier this year, the Better Business Bureau renewed FAIR’s standing as an accredited charity, something it could not do for the SPLC, yet again, due to “…a lack of commitment to transparency.” (www.bbb.org)
It’s also interesting to see a couple of stories about hate-crime victim Jose Sucuzhanay on this site, because you’ll only find one single footnote about the Ecuadorian immigrant’s murder on the SPLC’s website. (www.splcenter.org)
This seems strange, considering the coverage the SPLC has lavished on fellow Ecuadorian murder victim Marcelo Lucero.
The problem is that the four thugs who attacked Sucuzhanay and his brother believed they were Hispanic and gay, turned out to be black. The SPLC doesn’t cover non-white hate crimes and their mostly elderly donor base aren’t about to send in donor dollars to support gays.
Those donors sent in over $25 million last year, most of which ended up in the SPLC’s $151 MILLION donor dollar “Endowment Fund”.
The SPLC is all about “fighting hate” until it cuts into the bottom line. Jose Sucuzhanay never existed as far as the SPLC is concerned.
While you’re at the SPLC’s website, check out pages 11 and 40 of their latest IRS tax return. You won’t find any Hispanics listed among the SPLC’s top officers, or any other minorities, unless you count women as such. I don’t.
(http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/static/SPLC990_2007.pdf)
If these are your unbiased experts, you could do a lot better.
ONLY MORONS Listen to these radio show hosts and believe them. Anyone with a IQ over 45 which is of a monkey will not believe a word they say.
FAIR is a Racist Org. No AND IFS BUTS OR MAYBES.
“Key staff members have ties to white supremacist groups, some are members, and some have spoken at hate group functions.
“FAIR has accepted more than $1 million from a racist foundation devoted to studies of race and IQ, and to eugenics — the pseudo-science of breeding a better human race that was utterly discredited by the Nazi euthanasia program.
“It spreads racist conspiracy theories. Its political ads have caused numerous politicians, Democratic and Republican, to denounce it.”
Cool. Name the members, name the groups. The SPLC isn’t about to.
Whether or not one adheres to eugenics is irrelevant as it is not now, nor has it ever been, illegal to study the genetics of populations. If it were, every last farmer, gardener and rancher would be in prison.
Let’s see some of those “racist conspiracy theories.” Do you mean like the ones that go “Sovereign states have a right and a legal obligation to secure their national borders”?
That’s the kind of nutty idea that causes a certain Klan lawyer to slap “hate” labels on people who disagree with his ideology.
Not much of a hero, let alone a credible source.
Richard Keefe is an apologist for racists. Based on what you have written it is clear that you are hardened in your beliefs and it would be useless to try to pierce the amour of your ignorance with facts. Therefore, I will not waste time and breath to debunk your arguments.
Great piece, also: America’s Voice is a pro-immigration-reform organization. We think the immigration debate has spiraled out of control.
Folks can take action here:
http://www.AmericasVoiceOnline.org/FightFAIR
I’m very dissapointed to see this things happening and it seems that our sistems does not serve to everybody specially if you hispanic.
hello, look at the giant gorilla there in the corner. That’s twelve million people that showed up, and their cultures evidently encourage multiplication. I just want the population explosion to HALT. Starting with white people in the racist, ignorant south.
The answer is birth control. No instant solution, but if implemented now, in twenty years things will level off. However, our cultural fabric is changed forever, the USA better get used to Spanish. Again.
LOL, Tired, nobody ever expected you to “debunk” my arguments. You’re not going to believe anything I say no matter how many facts I cite, so what’s the point?
Dees wrote about being a Klan lawyer in his own autobiography. What’s to debunk?
The SPLC has one tiny, insignificant footnote about Jose Sucuzhanay on its website. What’s to debunk?
(www.splcenter.org)
The SPLC has over $151 MILLION donor dollars in the bank. It says so on their IRS tax return, which is posted on their own web site. What’s to debunk?
(http://www.splcenter.org/pdf/static/SPLC990_2007.pdf)
Typically, however, when you don’t like the message, you take a cheap shot at the messenger.
Smearing me as an “apologist for racists” is sooo much easier than actually pointing out what you believe I’ve said that is incorrect.
The only thing better than a bigot is a lazy bigot.
Does anyone out there remember the song “Three Little Words?” The words were, “I Love You.” Here are three somewhat longer words. “They Don’t Belong.” The illegal immigrants, that is. Plain, basic, truth. I could expound but nobody is listening. Lots’ of talkers out there. Not many listeners’ Not much honesty. “God helps those who help themselves.” Or, their family might. If, they are at home!!!