Posts Tagged ‘federation for american immigration reform’
 
April 25, 2013 0

Director of White Supremacist Organization Tied to Anti-immigrant Groups

roan-garcia-quintana

Roan Gar­cia Quintana

Roan Garcia-Quintana, a direc­tor of the white suprema­cist Coun­cil of Con­ser­v­a­tive Cit­i­zens (CofCC), is closely tied to anti-immigrant orga­ni­za­tions in the United States. Garcia-Quintana is a well-known leader in the CofCC, a group descended from the White Cit­i­zens Coun­cils, which opposed deseg­re­ga­tion of schools dur­ing the Civil Rights era.

He is a fre­quent speaker at CofCC regional events and national con­fer­ences. The CofCC has called mixed-race mar­riage “the mon­gre­liza­tion of the races” and is openly hos­tile to immi­gra­tion. The CofCC state­ment of prin­ci­ples says, “We there­fore oppose the mas­sive immi­gra­tion of non-European and non-Western peo­ples into the United States that threat­ens to trans­form our nation into a non-European major­ity in our lifetime.”

In a recent post on his Face­book wall, Garcia-Quintana wrote about attend­ing an event spon­sored by the extreme anti-immigrant group Fed­er­a­tion for Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion Reform (FAIR).  The event, “Hold Their Feet to the Fire,” which took place April 17 and 18 in Wash­ing­ton, DC, brought together anti-immigrant activists, fig­ures, radio hosts and immi­gra­tion restric­tion­ist mem­bers of Con­gress in an effort to influ­ence the immi­gra­tion debate. This year’s event focused on try­ing to derail immi­gra­tion reform by dis­cussing what FAIR sees as prob­lems with the new immi­gra­tion reform bill pro­posed by a bipar­ti­san group of senators.

Par­tic­i­pants in the event pre­sented their views on con­ser­v­a­tive talk radio and lob­bied mem­bers of Con­gress to vote against the bill.  On his Face­book page Garcia-Quintana said, “Attended the Fed­er­a­tion for Amer­i­can Reform’s annual Hold Their Feet to the Fire to lobby our SC Con­gres­sional Del­e­ga­tion to stop the Rubio-McCain-Schumer Amnesty bill.” A photo on FAIR’s Face­book wall indi­cates that Garcia-Quintana also attended FAIR’s 2011 “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event.

Garcia-Quintana’s rela­tion­ship with anti-immigrant orga­ni­za­tions dates back a num­ber of years. He is the founder of the South Carolina-based anti-immigrant group Amer­i­cans Have Had Enough Coali­tion. He also appeared in a 2009 video titled “Immi­gra­tion 103—American Trauma: Jobs and the Econ­omy,” pro­duced by the anti-immigrant group Num­ber­sUSA.

There are well-documented ties between the anti-immigrant move­ment and the CofCC beyond Garcia-Quintana. Roy Beck, the founder of Num­ber­sUSA and Rick Olt­man, a for­mer FAIR field orga­nizer, both addressed CofCC national con­fer­ences in the past. In addi­tion, other well-known fig­ures in the anti-immigrant move­ment, such as Wayne Lut­ton, the edi­tor of the anti-immigrant jour­nal The Social Con­tract, have also spo­ken at CofCC events.

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March 4, 2013 0

Anti-Immigrant Activist Writes Vicious Anti-Muslim Screed

Frosty Wooldridge, a Colorado-based anti-immigrant activist and radio show host, wrote an arti­cle for the right-wing news site, News With Views,  that con­tained a num­ber of vehe­mently anti-Muslim com­ments. The arti­cle, “Islamic Butch­ery Man­i­fests in Amer­ica with Mus­lim Immi­grants,” which appeared on the site on Feb­ru­ary 22, 2013, attacked and dis­torted mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, pro­moted anti-Muslim stereo­types and fea­tured other big­oted remarks.

Wooldridge began the arti­cle by crit­i­ciz­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and focus­ing on a num­ber of stereo­types of Mus­lims by assert­ing, “Amer­i­cans must ask them­selves if Muslim-style ‘mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism’ fits into the United States of Amer­ica. Can our coun­try tol­er­ate behead­ings, be-handings, female gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, arranged mar­riages of 12 year old girls and mur­ders of gays?” Wooldridge went on to claim that Mus­lim immi­grants “advo­cate for Sharia Law within Amer­ica” and “as their num­bers grow, they will imple­ment it with the power of the vote.”

Wooldridge con­tin­ued his dia­tribe by focus­ing on the city of Detroit, declar­ing, “Detroit, Michi­gan har­bors mas­sive Islamic cover-up of Mus­lim rit­u­als. It’s become so iso­lated that no Amer­i­can law can be adju­di­cated. Detroit has become an Islamic coun­try within our coun­try.” Wooldridge fol­lowed this by voic­ing a con­spir­acy the­ory often reserved for Jews but in this case directed towards Mus­lims, claim­ing, “Wher­ever their num­bers grow, Mus­lims slowly and method­i­cally over­whelm the host nation.”

Wooldridge also voiced his fears about increases in pop­u­la­tion, some­thing that attracted him to the anti-immigrant move­ment.  Wooldridge, like John Tan­ton, the founder of the modern-day anti-immigrant move­ment, and oth­ers see immi­gra­tion as the biggest cause of pop­u­la­tion growth. Wooldridge asserted that “smaller coun­tries like Bel­gium and Hol­land suf­fer com­plete dis­place­ment of their cul­tures, lan­guages and peo­ple because Mus­lims out-breed them at an astound­ing rate of speed.”

In 2011, the Fed­er­a­tion for Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion Reform (FAIR), one of the largest and most estab­lished anti-immigrant groups in the coun­try, appointed Wooldridge to its advi­sory board. Today he sits on that board along with John Tan­ton, FAIR’s founder. Another group Tan­ton helped found, the Cen­ter for Immi­gra­tion Stud­ies (CIS), cir­cu­lated Wooldridge’s anti-Muslim rant in its weekly roundup of immi­gra­tion opin­ion pieces.

Wooldridge’s anti-Muslim rhetoric is just the lat­est exam­ple of groups and indi­vid­u­als within the anti-immigrant move­ment tar­get­ing Mus­lims. Wooldridge’s posi­tion on FAIR’s advi­sory board and CIS’s pro­mo­tion of his racist dia­tribe fur­ther demon­strate that the anti-immigrant move­ment rou­tinely accepts big­ots into its ranks.

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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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