It's Time to Fight F.A.I.R.
What You Should Know About the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
FAIR is bringing people to visit Congressional offices to discuss immigrants and immigration policy. As Members of Congress and their staff prepare to meet with FAIR supporters, you should know some key facts about the group's origins and leaders. Did you know that:
- The Southern Poverty Law Center has named FAIR a "hate group." The list of other groups which have earned this distinction from SPLC include: the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, and the Aryan Nations. (Link)
- FAIR was founded by a supporter of eugenics, John Tanton, with funds from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation committed to the belief that some races of people are genetically and intellectually superior to other races. Tanton continues as a leader of FAIR and sits on its board of directors.
- FAIR employed and continues to employ known anti-Catholic bigots, including Rosanna Pulido, who said of the Catholic Church in the United States:
What better way to fill your pews and fill your offering coffers than with inviting in and giving sanctuary to illegal aliens? . . . What is being passed off right now by the Catholic Church is not Catholicism. It has nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible. (Link)
And FAIR Executive Director Dan Stein went further, targeting Latino Catholics:
Certainly we would encourage people in other countries to have small families. Otherwise they'll all be coming here, because there's no room at the Vatican. . . . Many immigrants hate America, hate everything the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans. (Link)
- FAIR's Executive Director Dan Stein has been an author and editorial board member for the Social Contract Press. FAIR Board member Sharon Barnes has also been on the editorial advisory board. Social Contract publishes the work of numerous white nationalists such as John Vinson, who wrote that God prefers racial separation and that the South should secede from the United States to protect white people. (Link)
- In February 2007, FAIR hosted a high profile meeting with Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang). This Belgian political group is described by the Anti-Defamation League as:
[D]eeply hostile to immigrants and minorities, and its members have a history of espousing racist and anti-Semitic views. Flemish Interest recently has made headlines in Europe as one of the founding members of a new racist and anti-Semitic political group in the European Parliament called "Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty" (ITS). (Link)
- FAIR has well-documented connections to the racist hate group Council of Conservative Citizens, formed out of the old White Citizens Council. The Council of Conservative Citizens has described black people as "a retrograde species of humanity." FAIR staffer Rick Oltman has spoken at Council events, as did FAIR field coordinator Dave Ray. Similarly, Council leaders Sam Francis and Jared Taylor have spoken at FAIR run forums. (Link)
Coverage
New Immigration Ads Stir the Melting Pot
By Mary An Akers, on Washingtonpost.com | September 9th, 2008
A coalition of pro-immigration groups is running a full-page ad today in the Capitol Hill newspapers Roll Call and Politico to protest a lobbying blitz this week by the anti-immigration group FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Calling Out FAIR: Lobbyists Descend At A Hate Group's Bidding
By: David Neiwert, on FireDogLake, Sep. 9, 2008
For years, the Federation for American Immigration Reform has gotten away with posing as a mainstream immigration-reform organization. The mask has finally started to slip off the façade, thanks in no small part to the Southern Poverty Law Center's devastating report on FAIR last year in which it was finally designated what we've known it to be all along: a hate group.
As Dobbs Prepares for Air, Hate Group Holds Own Feet to Fire
By AmericasVoiceOnline, on AlterNet | September 10, 2008
That's right, hold onto your hats, the Lou-natics © (TV pundit Lou Dobbs aficionados) and anti-immigrant activists are at it again. This time, however, they're directing their vitriol… at themselves?
For More Information
The Intellectual Roots of Nativism
Tucker Carlson in the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1997
In the debate over immigration policy, no single group has received more attention than FAIR, a Washington-based non-profit that claims a membership of 70,000. For close to 20 years, in books, monographs, op-eds and thousands of newspaper stories, FAIR has made the case for tighter national borders. And while the group's goal seems clear enough - to curtail immigration into the US - its ideology is harder to pin down.
Anti-Defamation League
Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream
"FAIR is more nuanced in its use of language than other anti-immigrant groups and it has been used as a resource by officials, the media and within anti-immigration policy circles. However, a close look reveals a pattern of extremist affiliations and a strategy of founding and empowering smaller groups that promote xenophobia."
Southern Poverty Law Center
"Probably the best-known evidence of FAIR's extremism is its acceptance of funds from a notorious, New York City-based hate group, the Pioneer Fund."
Center for New Community
Federation for American Immigration Reform: A Special Report (PDF)
“Organizations deserving mainstream respectability usually fire disreputable staff and return cash from nefarious donors. FAIR has done the opposite. Instead, they’ve attacked the venerable civil rights institution and sided with a white supremacist foundation.”
National Council of La Raza
Federation for American Immigration Reform Backgrounder
“Another example of FAIR's racist views is reflected in a comment made by Garrett Hardin, a FAIR board member, who argued that aiding starving Africans is counterproductive and will only ‘encourage population growth.’”