Immigration Overhaul Supporters Ratchet Up Rhetoric

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 14, 2009

In a sharp change of rhetoric by liberal supporters of an immigration overhaul, advocates Monday called a main opposition group a "hate group" based on its founder's ties to white supremacists and interest in racist ideas, such as eugenics.

The attack comes as illegal-immigration opponents plan a Capitol Hill lobbying push this week, starting Tuesday and Wednesday when 47 conservative radio talk show hosts plan to hold what they call a "town hall of the airwaves," fanning the furor over whether President Obama's health-care overhaul would help illegal immigrants.

Strategists on both sides said the clash underscores how Republican activists have stirred populist anxiety against not only Obama's centerpiece health-care plan but also other items on the president's agenda, and how core Democratic supporters have concluded that it no longer makes sense on issues such as health care and immigration to appeal to conservatives but to return fire instead.

In an ad published in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call and a teleconference with reporters planned later, America's Voice, an umbrella group of immigrant advocate organizations, is accusing the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a prime lobby for reduced immigration, of leading xenophobic efforts to lower the number of Hispanic people in the United States.

"The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is designated a HATE GROUP by the Southern Poverty Law Center," the ad reads, citing a December 2007 listing by an independent group based in Montgomery, Ala., that monitors racist groups. "Extremist groups, like FAIR, shouldn't write immigration policy," the ad concludes.

Dan Stein, executive director for FAIR, called attacks on the group's founder, John Tanton, false and outdated.

"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.

Supporters of immigration reform generally stopped short of such blunt attacks when Congress debated the issue in 2006 and 2007.

In an interview, Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, said conservative activists have used the same tactics on both issues, trying to intimidate Congress by tapping into a thin but vocal vein of populist anger. Sharry acknowledged the fate of immigration legislation, which Obama has said he will turn to next after health care and an energy bill, is likely linked to the outcome of the health battle.

"We didn't call it out last time, we thought we were in a political debate. Now we realize it's part political debate and . . . part culture war," Sharry said, between conservative populist and progressive forces. "These talk-show guys and FAIR, this isn't about immigration policy, as much as, they think there are way too many Latinos in this country, and they want to get rid of a couple of million of them."

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank spun off from FAIR that is also mentioned by the SPLC report, said Obama and congressional Democrats have been weakened by the dispute over illegal immigrant health coverage and likely surprised by its vehemence.

"Right now there are a lot of members of Congress who might have thought the immigration issue wasn't as hot for opponents as it was a couple a years ago," Krikorian said. "They were disabused of that notion."

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's shout of "You lie!" during Obama's speech Wednesday night dramatized the dispute, in which critics say Democrats are not doing enough to verify that illegal immigrants will not receive expanded health coverage at taxpayers' expense in any plan. The White House said Obama's plan will toughen restrictions and include more legal residency verification requirements, although backers say research indicates abuses are rare, that enforcement costs outweigh savings and that U.S. citizens sometimes get erroneously barred from help.

If the South Carolina congressman's outburst was a breach of decorum, the tenor of the immigration exchange suggests that civility is not likely to increase in coming months.

In a series of reports, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League have focused on environmental and anti-immigration activist John Tanton, who helped found FAIR in 1979. The groups quote from Tanton's correspondence with Holocaust deniers and white nationalist thinkers, his expressed interest in anti-Semitic authors and the study of eugenics, and concerns about the "educability" of Hispanics and the loss of a "European American" majority.

Heidi Beirich, a SPLC researcher, said the point is not to muzzle FAIR or its related organizations. Instead, she said, "We want to keep that drumbeat going so politicians know when FAIR lobbyists speak to them, this is who they represent."

Stein said his group represents people across racial and ethnic lines and "stands four-square against discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion, and we have a long track record." He said attacks on Tanton are out of context and "simply do not reflect the true character of the person," whom Stein described as a "Jeffersonian or Renaissance man or intellect" whose interest and writings span a wide range of issues.

He criticized America's Voice and allied groups as "juvenile mud throwers who seem unprepared to engage in serious public debate." Perhaps unintentionally echoing liberal groups' long standing allegations of conservative demagoguery on talk radio, Stein added, "For whatever reason, they've decided to participate in the destruction of the public square. I see it going on all sides now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01498.html