Perspectives & Information on Contemporary Civil Rights Issues

 
February 19, 2013 1

New Images Reveal Racists Attended Progressives for Immigration Reform Conference

New images from the Octo­ber 1, 2012 con­fer­ence of the anti-immigrant group Pro­gres­sives for Immi­gra­tion Reform (PFIR) emerged recently, show­ing many extrem­ists in atten­dance.   For exam­ple, one attendee was racist Peter Brimelow, the founder of VDARE. After the tragic shoot­ing at a Sikh tem­ple in the sum­mer of 2012 by white suprema­cist Wade Michael Page, Brimelow wrote an arti­cle for VDARE ask­ing what Sikhs were doing in Wis­con­sin in the first place. VDARE also fre­quently pub­lishes arti­cles from white suprema­cists such as Jared Tay­lor and anti-Semites such as Cal­i­for­nia pro­fes­sor Kevin Mac­Don­ald.  

Wayne Lut­ton, edi­tor of the anti-immigrant jour­nal The Social Con­tract (TSC), pub­lished by racist John Tan­ton, also was present at the PFIR con­fer­ence. In addi­tion to his edi­tor­ship of TSC, Lut­ton has been on the edi­to­r­ial advi­sory board of the Occi­den­tal Observer, which pub­lishes racist and anti-Semitic material.

In 2010, TSC pub­lished an issue enti­tled “The Men­ace of Islam” which was filled with anti-Muslim rhetoric.  In the “let­ter from the edi­tor,” Lut­ton called for a ban on all Mus­lim immi­gra­tion to the United States, argu­ing “what ben­e­fit do Amer­i­cans derive from hav­ing Mus­lims set­tle here? The costs have far out­weighed any ben­e­fits in terms of ter­ror­ism, vio­lent crime, and other social costs. What evi­dence is there that Mus­lim inte­gra­tion is pos­si­ble? It seems clear to us that it is (past) time to halt Mus­lim immi­gra­tion to the United States.”

K.C. McAlpin, the pres­i­dent of an anti-immigrant umbrella group called U.S., Inc. was another con­tro­ver­sial attendee.  After the TSC jour­nal called for a ban on all Mus­lim immi­gra­tion, McAlpin attempted to jus­tify the ban.  He claimed that ban­ning Mus­lims would be the same as ban­ning com­mu­nists or Nazis in the past. Accord­ing to McAlpin, “Con­gress has used that power in the past to ban the immi­gra­tion of Com­mu­nist Party and National Social­ist (Nazi) party mem­bers who were deemed to be threats to our national secu­rity. This case is no different.”

PFIR claims to be a “pro­gres­sive” orga­ni­za­tion, but allow­ing racists such as Peter Brimelow and Wayne Lut­ton to attend its con­fer­ences fur­ther under­mines its credibility.

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February 13, 2013 1

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) Named Head of House Immigration Reform Caucus

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ted Poe (R-TX) announced on Feb­ru­ary 7, 2013, that he will chair the House Immi­gra­tion Reform Cau­cus (IRC). The immi­gra­tion restric­tion­ist replaces out­go­ing chair­man Brian Bil­bray, who lost his seat in Cal­i­for­nia in Novem­ber 2012. Founded in 1999 by for­mer Col­orado Rep. Tom Tan­credo, IRC is the main block of immi­gra­tion restric­tion­ists in the House.  It is very closely aligned with the anti-immigrant movement.

Poe’s views closely align with the anti-immigrant move­ment. The Beltway-based anti-immigrant group Num­ber­sUSA give Poe an “A” grade for his vot­ing record on immi­gra­tion, which indi­cates that his record is in line with their ide­ol­ogy. In 2010, Poe signed onto an ami­cus brief in sup­port of Arizona’s SB1070 law, drafted by the Immi­gra­tion Reform Law Insti­tute (IRLI), the legal arm of the DC-based anti-immigrant group Fed­er­a­tion for Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion Reform (FAIR).  Poe has attended FAIR’s annual “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” radio event in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. The event brings radio hosts to Wash­ing­ton to broad­cast live and inter­view anti-immigrant activists and restric­tion­ist politi­cians. On Novem­ber 19, 2009, Poe par­tic­i­pated in a forum with other mem­bers of the House Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee enti­tled “Amer­i­can Jobs in Peril: The Impact of Uncon­trolled Immi­gra­tion.” Speak­ers included Roy Beck, pres­i­dent of Num­ber­sUSA, and Jerry Kam­mer and Steven Camarota of the anti-immigrant think-tank Cen­ter for Immi­gra­tion Stud­ies (CIS).

The Feb­ru­ary 7, 2013 press release also announced the mem­bers of the IRC Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee: Diane Black (R-TN), Bill Flo­res (R-TX), Phil Gin­grey (R-GA) and Lamar Smith (R-TX). All four Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee mem­bers have “A” grades from Num­ber­sUSA.  Lamar Smith and Phil Gin­grey have close ties to the anti-immigrant move­ment. Dur­ing his tenure as chair of the House Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee, Smith invited many promi­nent mem­bers of the anti-immigrant move­ment to tes­tify on immi­gra­tion issues. Gin­grey and Smith are also reg­u­lars at FAIR’s “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event. Both men received dona­tions from the U.S. Immi­gra­tion Reform PAC in the past. Mary Lou Tan­ton, the wife of racist John Tan­ton, the founder of the modern-day anti-immigrant move­ment, runs the PAC.

The Poe press release stated that IRC cur­rently has 58 mem­bers, although 77 peo­ple who were pre­vi­ously IRC mem­bers won re-election in 2012. It is unclear why so many IRC mem­bers decided to leave the Cau­cus, but some may want to dis­tance them­selves from the anti-immigrant move­ment now that immi­gra­tion reform has become more accept­able to both polit­i­cal par­ties. IRC’s pre­vi­ous two chairs, Bil­bray and Tom Tan­credo, a for­mer rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Col­orado, both lost elec­tions, per­haps in part due to their restric­tion­ist views on immi­gra­tion. It remains to be seen how Poe’s new posi­tion will impact vot­ers in his district.

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February 5, 2013 0

Religious Accommodation for Sikh Corrections Officer

Last week, respond­ing to appeals by The Sikh Coali­tion and ADL, the Ari­zona Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions agreed to allow a reli­gious accom­mo­da­tion for Ikhbinder Bassin, a ten-year employee of the Depart­ment and an obser­vant Sikh. 

As part of his reli­gious oblig­a­tions, Mr. Bassin does not cut his hair (includ­ing facial hair) and wears a kara (a reli­giously man­dated steel bracelet).  Upon his entry into his posi­tion in 2003, Mr. Bassin was granted a waiver from depart­men­tal pol­icy that pro­hibits the wear­ing of bracelets (other than for med­ical pur­poses) and from shear­ing his hair.  How­ever, in Decem­ber of 2012, close to his 10th anniver­sary, when Mr. Bassin would appar­ently become eli­gi­ble for extended employee ben­e­fits, he was noti­fied by a com­pli­ance offi­cer that he was not in com­pli­ance with Ari­zona Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions pol­icy.  The com­pli­ance offi­cer advised Mr. Bassin that he must com­ply or face pos­si­ble ter­mi­na­tion or reas­sign­ment into a non-uniform position.

Act­ing on Mr. Bassin’s behalf, The Sikh Coali­tion noti­fied the Depart­ment that under fed­eral and state law, includ­ing the First Amend­ment, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Arizona’s Free Exer­cise of Reli­gion Act, ter­mi­nat­ing or demot­ing Mr. Bassin for his reli­gious beliefs would vio­late the Department’s oblig­a­tions under the law.

With time run­ning out, and lit­tle indi­ca­tion that his reli­gious accom­mo­da­tion would be granted, Mr. Bassin reached out to ADL and other orga­ni­za­tions to advo­cate that his reli­gious rights be accom­mo­dated.  Fol­low­ing a con­sul­ta­tion with The Sikh Coali­tion, ADL endorsed their efforts, address­ing a let­ter to a vari­ety of Ari­zona gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers. The League noti­fied these gov­ern­ment offi­cials that we agreed with The Sikh Coalition’s legal analy­sis, and urged a reli­gious accom­mo­da­tion for Mr. Bassin.  ADL’s Ari­zona regional office also signed on to an inter­faith coali­tion let­ter sup­port­ing Mr. Bassin’s request.  These coali­tion efforts paid off.

By grant­ing Mr. Bassin the requested accom­mo­da­tion, the Ari­zona Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions demon­strated a wel­come respect for fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of reli­gious lib­erty. When sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions arise else­where, other Depart­ments should fol­low Arizona’s lead.

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