« Federation for American Immigration Reform
January 16, 2008
Fringe Activist Hopes Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Will Carry Him to Congress
With his career as an anti-immigrant activist stalled and his unemployment running out, Ted Hayes has announced that he is running for Congress against Los Angeles Rep. Maxine Waters (D).
Hayes first came to our attention in 2006 as a spokesman for Choose Black America, a front group assembled by the Federation for American Immigrant Reform, a mainly-white anti-immigrant organization that has, as the Southern Poverty Law Center noted, taken “more than $1 million from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation that funds writers seeking to prove that black people aren’t as smart as whites.”
“This illegal invasion, in my opinion, is the greatest threat to American black citizens since chattel slavery itself,” said Hayes, who also headed his own anti-immigrant “Crispus Attucks Brigade.” According to Hayes, the idea behind these groups is to put a stop to solidarity between blacks and Latinos struggling for civil rights: “They got some brothers running around here like Jesse Jackson and them talking about brown and black unity and ignoring the real issue,” he said. That issue, apparently, is immigrants supposedly taking away the civil rights of blacks: “Don't come here telling us about our civil rights. These aren't yours; these are ours. And you can maybe holler human rights here, and we'll give you some wiggle room on that. But you can't have them civil rights, brother.”
(Hayes embracing Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist. AP photo via SPLC.)
Before converting to the Republican Party a few years ago and joining the anti-immigrant movement, Hayes was famous as a homeless activist who started the Dome Village shelter in L.A. But his divisive immigration rhetoric—along with his Minuteman connections and confrontational protest style—failed to catch on. A Los Angeles Times article from just two weeks ago noted his events haven’t drawn crowds and his groups haven’t gotten many members or donations. Meanwhile, Dome Village shut down, and Hayes is almost broke, with his unemployment benefits set to run out this month.
But in announcing his congressional campaign, Hayes was hardly looking to move on from the anti-immigrant rhetoric that’s defined him for the past two years. Instead, immigration is the focus of his run:
Hayes says it is unfortunate that many of the new residents have become very belligerent to the blacks. "As the numbers increase, they begin to take on a whole other mindset," says Hayes, "[that implies] 'get out Negro, this is now Mexico' -- and they're threatening people and forcing them out of the community with violence, in fact. In the high schools, they begin to have an intimidating presence and they begin to attack the black children."
The congressional hopeful says he is challenging Waters this fall because blacks are feeling the ill effects of illegal immigration more than any other group. According to Hayes, illegal aliens are taking jobs that used to go to black citizens. "They'll take less than half the amount of money that we normally should be paid. They're forcing us out of our homes. They're forcing us out of our hospitals. They're claiming that what they're doing is their civil right to do so," he offers.
Posted by Ezra at 5:26 PM | Permalink
December 19, 2007
Huckabee Endorsement Continues to Inspire Minutemen Infighting, Break-Ups
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.”
Posted by Ezra at 5:59 PM | Permalink
August 22, 2007
Anecdotal Evidence
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has joined the chorus of right-wing activists holding up a crime in Newark, New Jersey as cause for an anti-immigrant crackdown. Romney campaign is running radio ads in Iowa and New Hampshire attacking “sanctuary cities” that “become magnets that encourage illegal immigration and undermine secure borders.” The ads also mention New York City, in an indirect attack on fellow candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who responded with his own attack accusing Romney of being soft on immigrants. The Wall Street Journal’s right-wing editorial page noted that their “attempt to one-up each other's anti-immigration rhetoric” makes it seem that they’re running “for the job of vacation replacement for Lou Dobbs” rather than president of the United States, and cited a “record drop in violent crime during the Giuliani years, which coincided with an increase in immigrants to the city.”
But while these candidates use one tragic anecdote to rally anti-immigrant sentiment, they’re ignoring another anecdote: the arrest and deportation of Elvira Arellano, who had left the sanctuary of a church to raise awareness of undocumented parents, like her, of children who are U.S. citizens. Last year, groups like “Mothers Against Illegal Immigration” and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps rallied for Arellano’s deportation and separation from her 7-year-old son, and now that that has occurred, anti-immigrant activists—those that Romney and Giuliani hope to curry favor with—are well pleased.
Federation for American Immigration Reform spokeswoman Joyce Mucci cried “thank goodness” at the deportation, which she said was “long overdue.” “"Unfortunately parents make bad choices that impact their children -- and this is not any different,” Mucci said. Craig Roberts Smith called Arellano a “child abuser of the worst kind” for her purported “[n]eglect and abandonment” in the form of being deported. Christopher Orlet, writing in the American Spectator, mocked Arellano as an attention-seeker exploiting her “anchor baby” for the cameras, adding, “Elvira Arellano is back in Mexico, but if history is any indicator, she will soon be strapping on her waders and fording the Rio Grande.”
Posted by Ezra at 5:27 PM | Permalink
August 21, 2007
Anti-Immigrant Activists Descend on Newark
The idea that undocumented immigrants are causing a crime wave in the U.S.—while not supported by evidence—has been a mainstay of anti-immigrant activists for decades. For example, in instituting ordinances against hiring or renting to immigrants, Hazleton, Pennsylvania Mayor Lou Barletta claimed that immigrants were “terroriz[ing]” the city. But defending the ordinances in court, Barletta could not back this claim up. “The people in my city don’t need numbers,” the frustrated mayor declared when confronted with the city’s own statistics showing the opposite.
Similarly, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist have been touting phony numbers on immigrants and crime.
But if statistics don’t back up their claims, anti-immigrant activists can always latch on to anecdotes. A recent multiple-homocide in Newark, New Jersey has implicated illegal immigrants, and national activists quickly descended upon the city, claiming that the crime was linked to local police not questioning suspects’ immigration status.
Possible presidential candidate Newt Gingrich used a visit to the Ames, Iowa straw poll to call for a special session of Congress to pass a law ensuring that “Any city, county or state that refuses to participate in checking every felony arrest will immediately lose all their federal aid.” Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin echoed his attack on so-called “Sanctuary Cities.” Jesse Lee Peterson of Brotherhood Organization for a New Destiny (BOND), who makes a career out of denouncing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, claimed that the murders in Newark were indicative of a “growing phenomenon” of “ethnic cleansing of blacks from lower-income neighborhoods by Hispanic gangs and illegal aliens.”
And on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) spoke at a rally in Newark, calling on the victims’ families to sue the city over the police department’s policy on checking immigration status. He was joined by anti-immigrant activists from You Don’t Speak For Me, a front group for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control.
Tancredo’s goal is to circumvent immigration reform in the U.S. Congress by pushing anti-immigrant measures in state legislatures and city councils—whether in small towns like Hazleton, which lack evidence of problems with undocumented immigrants but have leaders willing to rouse sentiment against them, or in places like Newark, where a brutal crime can become fodder for outside activists like him.
Posted by Ezra at 5:58 PM | Permalink
May 3, 2007
FAIR Decries Uppity Immigrant Protesters
"I just don't think we can comprehend the arrogance and the 'in-your-face-ness' of the illegal alien population.”
Posted by Ezra at 11:59 PM | Permalink
April 24, 2007
Anti-Immigrant Rally to Feature Tractor-Trailer Traffic Stunt?
As the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a number of radio talk-show hosts convene their anti-immigrant rally in Washington, D.C. this week, organizers were hoping to feature a convoy of truckers riding around the Beltway (Interstate 495) to protest illegal immigration and the mythical “North American Union.” The stunt, planned by bicyclist and author Frosty Wooldridge of the Save American Fund, was supposed to cause “a complete backup of traffic” by “encouraging truckers to form side-by-side convoys and circle the highway at the posted 55 mph speed limit.” A spokesman for the Maryland State Police didn’t sound too worried, saying “We have no problem with that, we want them to do the speed limit.”
Although the truckers apparently didn’t make it out today, one has to wonder about the feasibility of such an endeavor. Making it up to 55 on the Beltway during the excruciating rush hour would be impressive indeed.
Posted by Ezra at 5:22 PM | Permalink
February 6, 2007
Anti-Immigration Forces Plan Radio Rally
“Hold Their Feet to the Fire” rally scheduled for DC in April
Posted by Kyle at 3:35 PM | Permalink
January 24, 2007
Right Attacks Bush Speech over Immigration Reform
FAIR, Heritage, WorldNetDaily, Malkin.
Posted by Ezra at 11:59 PM | Permalink
January 23, 2007
Anti-Immigrant FAIR Launches Pre-Emptive Attack on Bush Speech
Denounces “radical immigration agenda.” Meanwhile: FAIR complains about lack of border fence.
Posted by Ezra at 11:59 PM | Permalink
January 17, 2007
Tancredo Runs for President
PAC chair Bay Buchanan: “Christian right can feel completely comfortable with” him. But some on the Right link him to extremist, “pro-eugenics” groups like FAIR. Also mentioned for possible Senate run.
Posted by Ezra at 5:58 PM | Permalink
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