Posts on Mothers Against Illegal Aliens

After Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist endorsed Mike Huckabee last week, other anti-immigrant border vigilantes rushed to repudiate their erstwhile comrade. Chris Simcox, who split with Gilchrist in 2005, dismissed the latter’s influence and criticized Huckabee’s “duplicitous” immigration program. The leader of another Minutemen splinter group called the endorsement “disturbing.”

A variety of anti-immigrant groups also came out of the woodwork to pile on Gilchrist in a letter distributed by Americans for Legal Immigration: “We denounce Jim Gilchrist's solo endorsement of a pro-amnesty and Open Borders candidate for President. Mr. Gilchrist does NOT speak for us!” Signatories included representatives of a number of local Minutemen franchises, a FAIR front group, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, Save Our State, California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and many more.

This week, Gilchrist is facing heavy pressure from WorldNetDaily reporter Jerome Corsi, the premier advocate of the “North American Union” conspiracy theory. Corsi’s approach, rather than simply denouncing Gilchrist, was to confront him with the claim that Huckabee’s immigration program contained some element making it unacceptable to them. In response, Gilchrist “backtracked” on his endorsement, according to a Corsi article titled “Minuteman reconsiders Huckabee endorsement.”

The only problem with Corsi’s friendlier approach—helping Gilchrist along with his retraction of the endorsement—is that Gilchrist denies it:

But Gilchrist says Corsi's article is not accurate. "I am holding firm. I am endorsing Governor Mike Huckabee for president. I'm not wavering or waffling," he states.

And as for the WorldNetDaily report? "I have to say that Mr. Corsi really made me feel like he was interrogating me like a police investigator or a prosecuting attorney, rather than interviewing me," Gilchrist asserts. "He kept insisting that I was waffling -- and I did not say that; he kept saying that. And apparently he had an agenda."

But Corsi says he sticks by his story. "If Jim can't keep his story straight from one day to the other, ... I'll be happy to play back [for him] the recordings I made of him each day and Jim can listen to himself saying that he was going to reconsider the endorsement of Huckabee," he says.

What’s strangest about this exchange between Corsi and Gilchrist—with misunderstandings, hurt feelings, agendas—is that the two know each other very well. They wrote a book together on the Minutemen last year. Now, sadly, it seems they are no longer on speaking terms: Corsi’s latest article, which accuses Gilchrist of going soft, ends with the poignant line, “Gilchrist declined to comment.”

It’s not a good month for Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, a virulent anti-immigrant group we first noticed last year when they targeted the undocumented mother of a 7-year-old U.S. citizen for deportation. “Our beautiful Nation has been turned into a jungle by the mass invasion of illegal aliens,” warned the group’s mission statement at the time, although it has been updated to dial-down the hate speech (while keeping the references to “Aztlan”—“We are not only at war with Iraq, but we ARE at WAR with MEXICO”).

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League released a report, titled “Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream,” which describes how anti-immigrant groups “borrow from the playbook of hate groups” in their quest to demonize Hispanics. ADL’s first example is Mothers Against Illegal Aliens.

At the same time, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the large grassroots advocacy group that changed attitudes about drinking and driving in the 1980s, sent a letter demanding that MAIA cease and desist from exploiting the “Mothers Against” reputation. According to MAIA founder Michelle Dallacroce, “You've got La Raza infiltrating MADD. MADD's now into seatbelt safety instead of deporting illegal drunk drivers.”

While efforts by the Right to build a religious coalition on immigration never panned out, anti-immigrant activists in California have been steadily building their own version of a relationship with the religious community. Activists with the San Diego Minuteman group spent their summer staging over-the-top protests at an area Catholic church accused of offering breakfast to day-laborers. And now, in Simi Valley, activists protested another church, this time for sheltering an undocumented mother and her U.S.-born son, in a reenactment of Elvira Arellano’s stand-off with authorities last year.

Activists with Save Our State reportedly planned on making a “citizen’s arrest” of the Simi Valley mother, reports the Ventura County Star. "I'm here because I'm for the movement for the illegals to go home,” explained one protester. The protest apparently became violent, as one anti-immigrant protester allegedly pepper-sprayed a pro-immigrant counter-protester, and several neo-Nazis showed up to hold their own mini-rally. The group “Mothers Against Illegal Aliens” also apparently made an appearance.

(Photo: Ventura County Star.)

But the confrontation took its strangest twist after the protest. The city of Simi Valley sent a bill for almost $40,000 to the United Church of Christ to cover increased police presence. Although the church did not plan the protest—it was organized by Save Our State, a group that inspired cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania to pass their own anti-immigrant ordinances to fend off a “Third World cesspool”—and although the church did not call for any police presence, Simi Valley Mayor Paul Miller blames the church for “harboring an illegal immigrant” and “any potential violence as a result.”

Simi Valley apparently want to send a message: that they are on the side of Save Our State.

The City Council made it clear it doesn't want Liliana in a Simi Valley church.

"This city is not going to be known as sanctuary city,'" Miller said.

A group calling itself Mothers Against Illegal Aliens is targeting another mother – the undocumented mother of a 7-year-old U.S. citizen.

“Our beautiful Nation has been turned into a jungle by the mass invasion of illegal aliens,” reads the mission statement of the group, whose founder has said that “their children's job is to dumb down the American children and overpopulate our schools.” Now, MAIA is filing an abuse report against a woman who is staying with her U.S.-born son in a Chicago church, seeking to avoid deportation. The group is urging police to break up the mother and son, saying he should be “taken into protective custody or foster care until such time as [the mother]’s apprehension is executed.”