The Green War on Immigrants
Bigotry. That isn’t the first word that comes to mind when one thinks about environmentalism, but green bigotry is real and growing. A web of individuals, groups and funders who identify themselves as environmentalists are dividing the environmental movement and moving it away from solutions that are inclusive of diverse communities.
The good news is we can take a stand against the greening of hate. Read more
Anti-Immigrant “Progressives” Defended On White Nationalist Website
Last week we reported that the anti-immigrant group Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) had its column on Huffington Post cancelled after the group’s connections to white nationalists were exposed. Apparently this was news to PFIR’s executive director, Leah Durant, who only found out about the cancellation after reading about it on Imagine 2050.
Durant sent a letter to Stuart Whatley, the Associate Blog Editor at the Huffington Post. Below is an excerpt from Durant’s letter:
About a week ago, our staff was confronted with a piece by Stephen Piggott, a writer at Imagine 2050. The piece announced that PFIR’s postings on Huffington had been “pulled” due to PFIR’s alleged “connections to white nationalists…”
In my opinion, if this is in fact the case, it is not only unethical for Huffington Post to pull our commentary based on the accusations of a single interest group like Imagine 2050, it is also highly disappointing that no one at the Huffington Post had the decency to inform us that our commentary would be pulled, or to provide us with an explanation.
She continued:
As for Imagine 2050’s central allegation of PFIR’s having ties to white nationalists, not only are these charges patently false, they are almost certainly actionable. Read more
New Report Exposes Nativists, Environmentalism & the Hypocrisy of Hate
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a new report today titled, Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism & the Hypocrisy of Hate.
The report details decades-old attempts by anti-immigrant groups – all part of the John Tanton Network – to lure environmentalists and environmental groups into adopting their anti-immigrant agenda.
The SPLC report comes less than a week after a report released by the Center for New Community showed how anti-immigrant forces have corrupted the dialogue on population and the environment, called Apply The Brakes: Anti-immigrant Co-optation of the Environmental Movement.
At the heart of both reports is the Tanton Network and its efforts to avoid accusations of racism by cloaking its anti-immigrant agenda in environmental groups that are deemed “progressive.” This strategy was instigated by John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who is widely considered to be the founder of the modern-day anti-immigrant movement. Tanton believed that once his organizations and individuals under his guidance were imbedded into progressive organizations like the Sierra Club, they could implement an anti-immigrant agenda without coming under attack. Read more
Negative Population Growth Plants Anti-immigrant Advertisement in Washington Times
July brought another advertisement in the Washington Times by anti-immigrant group Negative Population Growth (NPG). NPG attacks immigrants in order to tap into the urgency of the environmental movement around the BP oil spill. This is just one more attempt to further the manipulative demand for U.S. Population Stabilization by white nationalists and anti-immigration groups.
NPG’s advertisement reads,
THE CRISIS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO IS ONLY THE BEGINNING…Without a national population policy America will face future environmental disasters on a regular basis!
The problem with NPG’s message is not that it’s concerned with the population growth of our planet; the main problem is who is behind this group, who they are connected to and why they link national immigration to world population. Read more
“Apply the Brakes:” Nativists and Naturalists Corrupt the Environment-Population Dialogue
Who would have thought that the renowned Lester Brown of Worldwatch Institute or Roderick Nash of the classic Wilderness and the American Mind would involve themselves in a portion of the environmental movement that dallies with nativists and white nationalists? Or that the Weeden Foundation, a mainstay funder of numerous environmental groups, might “steer the environmental movement toward a course fueled by bigotry and racism?”
With the release today of “Apply the Brakes: Anti-Immigrant Co-optation of the Environmental Movement,” the Center for New Community has laid these unseemly realities bare, and exposed yet another effort by anti-immigrant forces to corrupt the dialogue on the relationship of immigration to population growth to environmental degradation. As well, the report maps the ties between anti-immigrant interests and environmental groups nationwide.
Apply the Brakes (ATB) s a rather innocuous gathering of “long-time conservationists” committed to stopping “unsustainable U.S. population growth.” Having met in 2006 “to discuss the decade-long retreat of U.S. environmental organizations from addressing domestic population growth as a key issue in both domestic and global sustainability,“ the group determined to fill the population gap left by traditional environmental organizations. Flying low over the environment-population-immigration landscape ever since, Apply the Brakes is perhaps the most stealthy of anti-immigrant configurations, with long roots in The John Tanton Network and the contemporary nativist movement in the U.S. Read more
Despite Sullied Reputations, Anti-Immigrant Bigots Push Immigration & Oil Spill Argument
Imagine 2050 has received yet another communication from anti-immigrant leaders asking that we provide a platform for their politically extreme viewpoints. This one came from Philip Cafaro, a professor who works with anti-immigrant groups like Center for Immigration Studies and Progressives for Immigration Reform, as a response to an article I recently wrote.
Let’s set the record straight for Cafaro. Linking the BP oil spill to immigration and population growth – as he has done – is racist and bigoted. And the fact that he makes these arguments on behalf of controversial groups like Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) raises questions about his true agenda when it comes to the environment. Cafaro writes regularly for CIS, so far producing one report and four blogs for the organization. In addition to CIS, Cafaro is an advisory board member for Progressives for Immigration Reform. On January 12, he wrote a blog on PFIR’s website in which he lauded an article published by the white nationalist journal, The Social Contract. Progressives for Immigration Reform and CIS are both part of white nationalist John Tanton’s network of anti-immigrant groups. Read more
Anti-Immigrant Groups Forced to Address Ties to White Nationalists
It’s no secret that the anti-immigrant movement in the United States has long and deep connections to white nationalist individuals and organizations. The current anti-immigrant movement is tainted by these ties and they follow the anti-immigrant individuals and organizations into whatever area they go. For years, civil rights organizations like the Center for New Community, the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, to name a few, have exposed these ties for the world to see.
Since the summer began we have seen many examples of anti-immigrant organizations forced to act in defense of their ties to white nationalist individuals and organizations. Here are a few examples:
Kris Kobach, a lawyer for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal arm of the hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform, and his buddy Sheriff Joe Arpaio were forced to relocate a Kansas anti-immigrant event after the location raised concerns. Read more
Anti-Immigrant Leader Defends Controversial Environmentalist
Durant posing with white nationalists Wayne Lutton & Peter Gemma
Imagine 2050 hit the nail on the head a nerve with anti-immigrant groups a few weeks ago when we posted an article about one of the anti-immigrant movement’s environmentalists-for-hire, Philip Cafaro.
Leah Durant, executive director of Progressives For Immigration Reform, sent us a rebuttal defending her friend (Cafaro) and attacking me. In her email she asked that we publish her lengthy response on our site. Normally, we would, but we have this policy about providing platforms for bigots - we just don’t do it.
However, I would like to share some of what she said in an effort to help the public get a feel for Durant’s connections to white nationalism and why the anti-immigrant movement is a danger to environmental causes.
Durant starts by saying, “Garvey’s piece deceptively frames the entire immigration reduction argument in the US as simply being a byproduct of right-wing, nativist and racist bigots.” Read more
Huff Hosts Nativist Posts
Next time you log onto the Huffington Post be aware that it is hosting anti-immigrant nativists posing as “Progressives for Immigration Reform” (PFIR), a front group spun out by the white nationalist Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the very hub of the infamous John Tanton Network. The first PFIR column by its executive director, Leah Durant, appeared last week; more are said to be coming, twice weekly. Hosting PFIR puts Huff Post up there—almost—with The Nation magazine, which has unashamedly taken significant paid advertising from other FAIR fronts, the “Coalition for the Future American Worker” and related “America’s Leadership Team for Long-Range Population-Resource-Immigration Planning.”
Expressing faux-concern about the undercounting of undocumented immigrants in last week’s column, Durant feigned that “the incomplete census format is diluting the voting power of millions of American citizens,” an indication that she has conveniently forgotten her friendly photo with white nationalists at the 33rd Writers Workshop put on by The Social Contract Press, founded by anti-immigrant guru John Tanton. Durant was formerly a staff attorney for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, as if her PFIR “credentials” were not enough to expose her politics. Read more
The Anti-Immigrant Movement’s Environmental Mercenary
“Now, if we had time, I think I could show that every major environmental problem in the U.S. is made worse by population growth.”
-Philip Cafaro, anti-immigrant activist speaking on a panel titled, “Immigration, Population, and the Environment: Experts to Debate Impact of Current Policies.”
White nationalist John Tanton, driver of the most powerful anti-immigrant movement in America, has perfected the art of playing both sides against the middle.
Tanton’s array of organizations, from lobbyists to grassroots mobilizers, work closely with national tea party leaders one day and the next pander to left-leaning audiences through spin-off groups like Progressives for Immigration Reform. This is nothing new for the Network’s web of over two dozen organizations – meticulously nurtured for the last three decades by the same small circle of men.
When the Network’s seed group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), wanted to appear pro-Latino a few years back, it recruited virulent minuteman leader and Mexican-American Rosanna Pulido to head up its You Don’t Speak for Me coalition – a front group that unsuccessfully tried to trick established Latino communities into thinking that immigrants were budging them in the line for the American dream. A similar tactic was tried when FAIR-created Choose Black America and recruited a few far right African-American representatives like Ted Hayes to bash immigrants. To this day, anti-immigrant groups exploit the false notion that immigrants and African-Americans must compete with one another for prosperity. Read more
Sustainable Hate
The John Tanton Network is having a field day in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Week. Last week, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), Negative Population Growth (NPG), and Progressives for Immigration Reform, (PFIR), shared the same message. Linked together by hate, each of these organizations used Earth Week to blame environmental degradation on immigrants. Groups under the Tanton umbrella are once again attempting to infiltrate environmental constituencies.
These anti-immigrant groups have a unified vision for a sustainable future. They promote US population stabilization, lower levels of immigration and, throughout Earth Week, they honed in on it. They argue that the connection between US immigration levels and US population must be environmentalists main focus. The question is why? Lets examine where these groups are coming from to get a better sense.
Anti-immigrant Leader Admits Using Climate Change for Political Gain
by Rebecca Poswolsky and Dave M.
The anti-immigrant movement has long capitalized on environmental concerns to attack America’s immigrant communities. This tactic was on full display at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend in Washington D.C.
While most people were listening to Newt Gingrich speak on Saturday, about 75 people assembled in one of the smaller rooms to hear a discussion entitled “Immigration: The Defining Issue for the Republican Party,” sponsored by American Council for Immigration Reform. The panel’s four speakers included: Robert E. Rector, Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation; Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS); James G. Gimpel, Professor of Government, University of Maryland; and Rep. Steve King from Iowa. Each speaker had 20 minutes to speak, followed by a question and answer session. The audience boasted a whole host of anti-immigrant individuals including Chad McDonald from NumbersUSA; Wayne Lutton, editor of The Social Contract; Howard Wooldridge, younger brother of anti-immigrant activist Frosty Wooldridge; and James Russell of Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy.
A number of alarming comments were made by the panelists throughout the session. Rep. Steve King stated that he “sympathized” with the man who crashed his plane into the IRS building in Texas this past weekend. When asked later in the Q&A session about his comments, King did not take them back and instead launched into a rant against the IRS for targeting him in his pre-political days. Read more
Anti-immigrant Network Uses Faith to Mask Hateful Agenda
Fr. Bascio at Tanton event
The John Tanton Network has debuted its newest spin-off group. This time, instead of targeting environmentalists or progressives, they are trying to win over faithful Americans to their anti-immigrant agenda.
The group is called Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy (CMIP). The public face of the organization includes a priest who, keeping with the Tanton Network’s history, has ties to controversial organizations like American Free Press – founded by notorious holocaust denier Willis Carto, and the white nationalist journal, The Social Contract, founded by John Tanton.
In fact, Social Contract’s bigot-in-chief, Wayne Lutton, personally helped Catholics for a Moral Immigration Policy (CMIP) get started at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. this past Friday. In addition to releasing racist publications, Wayne Lutton is also a Board of Director for the Charles Martel Society, an anti-Semitic organization that publishes the Occidental Quarterly. Lutton was also active with the overtly racist magazine American Renaissance and the flagship publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The Council of Conservative Citizens is the reconstituted, segregationist White Citizens’ Councils. Read more
FAIR and Lyndon LaRouche: Of Soul Mates and Front Groups
LaRouche
When it comes to creating bogus front groups, few organizations in the U.S. today can match the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Its most recent incarnation—“Progressives for Immigration Reform”—is all dressed up in a caringly liberal-like web site, professing its commitment to protect American workers and the environment, and to “improve the lives of people worldwide.” One has to wonder if someone at FAIR got schooled in its front groups strategy by Lyndon LaRouche, the wacky, right wing demagogue and political operative and whose capacity to create political confusion through his fronts is the gold standard to which FAIR may aspire. Read more
Anti-Immigrant ‘Progressives’ Embrace Hate
Back in 1963, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream where . . . “little black boys and black girls” would “be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” I’m fairly sure Dr. King wasn’t envisioning Leah Durant, executive director of Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR) joining group shots with prominent leaders tied to the American white nationalist movement.
For nearly a year Leah Durant has been working overtime in an attempt to convince the public that PFIR is a legitimate progressive organization concerned about the issue of immigration. Recently in a discussion on AlterNet Durant argued that the fact that she was African American should be proof enough of PFIR’s progressive bona fides. Ironically Durant makes this statement after arguing that her organization was not “concerned with race.” Read more
Anti-immigrant Groups and Environmentalists at Odds
Masked is the word that comes to mind when I think of anti-immigrant organizations that claim to be concerned about the environment. As we move into a new month, year, decade and closer to the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, we must be mindful of environmental issues and especially of who are considered legitimate environmental experts. Conscious and informed environmentalism is imperative to solve dire environmental problems.
However, politically extreme organizations that purport to prioritize environmental preservation/conservation are using this alarming issue to promote their anti-immigrant agendas. They are employing several aggressive tactics, some of which are outright attacks on mainstream environmental organizations for not taking an anti-immigrant stance. Other examples include TV and radio advertisements which falsely connect immigrants to environmental degradation. Fear-mongering and bullying are the anti-immigrant movement’s favored tactics. Read more
What is So Progressive About ‘Progressives for Immigration Reform’? Um, Nothing.
FAIR front group, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), is continuing to assert itself into mainstream discourse. The John Tanton network of anti-immigrant groups have a long history of trying to hoodwink the public, so it comes as no surprise that they started an organization of fake progressives. The lame-duck group just released a “study” on self-identified liberals’ feelings on immigration.
Leah Durant, PFIR executive director, quoted herself in PFIR’s press release saying:
“The results of this poll demonstrate what many on the political left have known for some time. Immigration is not a partisan issue. There are many progressives and liberals that are concerned about the unintended consequences that large scale immigration has on the environment, economy, and other issues that many liberals are concerned about,”
I couldn’t agree more Leah! This certainly is not a partisan issue. So why did PFIR’s parent group, FAIR, build the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC), that is overwhelmingly Republican? Read more
Right Prepares to Woo Left on Immigration
Real progressives would do well to prepare in the coming months. The civil rights organization Center for New Community announced in the most recent edition of its e-bulletin, FAIR Exposed, that the Tanton Network has launched a front group called Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR). PFIR is simply another addition to a growing list of anti-immigrant groups being set up under the Tanton Network to give the illusion that the anti-immigrant movement is broader than it really is.
This network of organizations is named after white nationalist John Tanton the founder and key leader in a network of anti-immigrant organizations, spin-offs and front groups. Key entities include Center for Immigration Studies, Social Contract Press, and the Coalition for the Future American Worker.
John Tanton is a controversial figure. The founder and a current board member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Tanton helped secure over a million dollars in funding from a foundation known as the Pioneer Fund, a racist foundation that peddles pseudo-science claiming that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites based on cultural and biological factors. In the 1930s the Pioneer Fund distributed propaganda films developed by the Nazi Germany to public schools. Read more
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Authors
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