Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) leader William Gheen has always been a bit of a nut. Just last month Gheen inappropriately called for Sen. Lindsey Graham to admit he was gay at a tea party event, and who could forget when he said, “Call me old fashioned, but people should be able to shop at Wal-Mart without worrying about catching [t]uberculosis.” For years Gheen has had a close relationship with the more disciplined network of anti-immigrant groups run by John Tanton. He has attended events featuring FAIR (Tanton’s flagship organization) state groups and participated in strategy calls conducted by leaders of Tanton’s network.

Given Gheen’s past history with the Tanton Network, it was not surprising when he announced that ALIPAC would participate in an anti-immigrant rally on June 5 in Phoenix. Two days later, in its weekly letter to members, NumbersUSA, the Tanton Network’s mobilizing arm, announced it would also support the rally, stating it would “kick off other state efforts and a week long campaign called ‘Shop In Arizona.’”  It appeared as if the Tanton Network and ALIPAC were working hand in hand. But then something went wrong.

ALIPAC announced last Wednesday that the date of the rally had been changed from June 5 to June 12. ALIPAC listed the groups sponsoring the new rally on June 12 as “Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, Tea Party Patriots Live, NumbersUSA, Resistnet.com, America’s Black Shield, 9-11 Families for a Secure America, NC Listen, Scottsdale Tea Party, Houston Tea Party Society, and Citizens in Action.”

That same day a website called phoenixrally.com was launched. The website is devoted specifically to the June 5 anti-immigrant march and, interestingly, does not list ALIPAC as one of its sponsors.  NumbersUSA, which is listed as a sponsor of the June 5 event and, according to ALIPAC, a sponsor of the June 12 event, did not notify its members of a date change in its newsletter last Friday and has never publicly stated that it supports ALIPAC’s June 12th rally. Additionally, three other Tanton Network groups are listed as sponsors for June 5.

One thing is clear, some sort of rift occurred between ALIPAC and the Tanton Network groups, and it looks as if ALIPAC got burned. Considering the critical juncture at which the anti-immigrant movement finds itself, internal strife is inopportune and could be costly.

So what could have caused the split? A few clues appeared yesterday when ALIPAC clearly distanced itself from the individuals coordinating the June 5 event and officially pulled its support.

ALIPAC gave two reasons for objecting to the June 5 rally: the involvement of Tom Tancredo and the coordinator’s ties to a racist group. The June 5 event is being spearheaded by a group called Voice of the People which owns the phonenixrally.com website. The group’s leader, Daniel Smeriglio, has strong ties to white nationalist individuals and organizations. One People’s Project brought all of this to Gheen’s attention during a conversation about two weeks ago.

Gheen’s initial reaction was to bash One People’s Project and defend Voice of the People. This is no surprise considering Gheen’s own connections to white nationalists. But why would he do an about-face two weeks later and pull out of the event citing white nationalists as the reason?

Perhaps Gheen is using the white nationalist connections to sabotage an event from which he’s been shut out. We already know Gheen has a bone to pick with lime-light stealing former Congressman Tom Tancredo.

In yesterday’s press release, Gheen attacked Tancredo stating,

“We do not feel comfortable asking our national network to travel into Arizona at great expense to attend an event that Tom Tancredo is attempting to undermine.”

He continued,

“Unfortunately, our plans to get the skinheads out and away from the Phoenix effort was thwarted, when retired Congressman Tom Tancredo, who had self titled himself as the ‘key note speaker’ at the June 5 event started telling leaders and candidates to come back to the June 5 rally.”

It will be interesting to see how this power struggle pans out. It appears already that if Gheen is being pushed out, he plans to take others with him.

With the Tanton Network still hurting from the Rachel Maddow beating it took a few weeks ago, more racist controversy dredged up by vindictive former friends could be devastating.