The Tainted Sources of Arizona’s SB 1070*

Joe Old

Journalism/ English Instructor

El Paso Community College

May 12, 2010

*Apologies to Charles Lane , who wrote “The Tainted Sources of The Bell Curve”

which ran in the New York Review of Books on Dec. 1, 1994, pp. 14-19.

Version 1.9 May 27, 2010

Arizona Senate Bill 1070 was signed into law on April 23, 2010. When it takes effect on July 29, 2010, it will be the toughest immigration control law in the nation.

The new law immediately engendered a firestorm of protest around the country, with legal challenges by some, with calls for its repeal from some quarters, and with calls to boycott the state of Arizona from others.

Tens of thousands of people in cities across the nation took to the streets on May Day to protest the law.

SB 1070 becomes law in Arizona

Click here for the full text of the ORIGINAL law, and the AMENDED version.

This presentation will examine the context in which this law came about, particularly in terms of ideas the law contains and the politics and ideology of its advocates and proponents.

It is argued here that this law is tainted by hate and fear, and that in effect the law codifies the ideology of a small but active group of people and organizations whose goals and agendas are often overt, but sometimes are covert.

Every claim made here is supported and in most cases a link is provided for the viewer to the original documents where even more information is available.

Method

Q: What makes a source tainted?

•Its politics?•Its ideas?•Its connections?•Its intellectual context?•The company its proponents keep?•The company its writers and sponsorskeep?

Q: Is SB 1070 tainted?

You can weigh the evidence…

Sponsor: State Sen. Russell Pearce (R)

Pearce “had long been considered a politically incorrect embarrassment by more moderate members of his party. … There was a time in 2007 when he appeared in a widely circulated photograph with a man who was a featured speaker at a neo-Nazi conference. (Mr. Pearce said later he did not know of the man’s affiliation with the group.)”

Source: Randal C. Archibald, “Immigration Bill Reflects Firebrand’sImpact,” New York Times 19 April 2010.

See also Rachel Maddow segment on Russell Pearce.

Russell Pearce and JT Ready

Pearce and neo-Nazi JT Ready at political rally.

Ready speaking at anti-immigration rally. (The full sign reads “Where’s the fence?”)

JT Ready and friends

Source: SPLC

JT Ready (second from right) at neo-Nazi rally in Omaha, Sept. 1, 2007.

Neo-Nazi Political Rally in Arizona

Source

Neo-Nazi Political Rally in Arizona

Source

Prof. Kris Kobach helped draft SB 1070

Kobach was Atty. General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration law and border security from 2001 to 2003. (Source: NYT: 4/29/2010)

The IRLI (The Immigration Reform Law Institute), a legal affiliate of FAIR (The Federation for American Immigration Reform) helped draw up the law. (Source: FAIR website.)

… working with FAIR’s IRLI

Kris Kobach (UMKC Web page)

Mother Jones Bio on Kobach May 7, 2010

• Founded in 1979• Lobbies for Immigration Reform• Often cited in the mainstream media• Works to keep its image clean

But in December 2007, FAIR was named a “hate group” by the SPLC

Source: “The Teflon Nativists: FAIR Marked by Ties to White Supremacy,” SPLC.See also: “FAIR,”, Wikipedia.

FAIR’s 7-point hard line on immigration

Source

1. Cut the numbers of people entering the country2. No legalization or mass guest-worker program3. Protect wages and standards of living 4. Major upgrade in interior enforcement, led by strong employers penalties5. Stop special interest asylum abuse6. Immigration time out 7. No racial profiling (equal under the law).

* The FAIR website contains a detailed explanation of each principle and why FAIRconsiders each one important.

“Seven Principles of True Comprehensive Immigration Reform“*

FAIR was founded by John Tanton

John Tanton(SPLC Photo)

John Tanton has• Questioned the “educability” of Hispanics• Published “white nationalist” authors• Corresponded with Holocaust deniers• Introduced FAIR officials to the PioneerFund which promotes “eugenics” research for “race betterment”

• Promoted American Renaissance, a“white nationalist” organization / Journal connected to Jared Taylor

• Hired Wayne Lutton, a “white nationalist”ideologue to edit The Social Contract

• Had many associations with known racistsand anti-Semites (e.g., Kevin MacDonald)

Source: Heidi Beirich, “The Tanton Files: Nativist Leader’s Racist Past Exposed,” SPLC.

Connections &associates ofJohn Tanton

• Wayne Lutton, The Social Contract (editor)

• Jared Taylor, American Renaissance (editor)

• Sam Francis, Citizens Informer (editor)

• Virginia Abernethy, avowed “white separatist”• Kevin MacDonald, avowed anti-Semite

• And many more….

“Wayne Lutton is the gay-bashing, immigrant-hating editor of The Social Contract, a journal published by the hate group, The Social Contract Press, and the closest colleague of the founder of the modern anti-immigration movement and head of the press, John Tanton. A stalwart on the racist speaking circuit, Lutton has connections to several hate groups including the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, the Holocaust-denying Institute of Historical Review, and the white nationalist journal The Occidental Quarterly.”

The Social Contract is published by Tanton

Wayne Lutton: Editor, The Social Contract

Wayne Lutton(SPLC Photo)

Source: Wayne Lutton Bio, SPLC

Jared Taylor, Editor, American Renaissance

Groups: American RenaissanceIdeology: White Nationalist

In His Own Words

"Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.“

The organization “is best known for its American Renaissance magazine and website, which regularly feature proponents of eugenics and blatant anti-black racists. ”

— American Renaissance, 2005

Source: “American Renaissance,” SPLC.

Sam Francis, Citizens Informer

Ad: “Samuel Francis was the most incisive thinker of our time on the politics of race. Here, in one volume, are his most thoughtful essays on this crucial subject. Lovingly edited and introduced by Jared Taylor, Essential Writings on Race is one of the central texts of American race-realist thought.”

American Renaissance StoreSamuel Francis

“From 1999 until his death in 2005, Francis edited the crudely racist and nativist Citizens Informer, the tabloid published by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), an organization that says it ‘oppose*s+ all efforts to mix the races of mankind.’ “

Source: Heidi Beirich, “The Tanton Files,” SPLC.

Virginia Abernethy, “White separatist”

Virginia Abernethy(Source)

Ignoring Its Own Ties, Anti-Immigration Group Denounces White 'Separatist'

White Supremacy

“Although Abernethy denied being a supremacist, telling the Arizona Daily Star that she was merely a white ‘separatist’ who preferred to be ‘with my own kind,’ she was immediately denounced by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR, which helped pay to gather signatures for the referendum but later broke angrily with [Protect Arizona Now], described Abernethy's views as ‘repugnant.’"

Source: “Virginia Abernethy,” SPLC

Kevin MacDonald, “White Nationalist”

Kevin MacDonald

Ideology: White Nationalist

Groups: Occidental Quarterly

“Kevin MacDonald is the neo-Nazi movement's favorite academic.

“A psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, MacDonald, who also is a board member of the white supremacist Charles Martel Society, published a trilogy that supposedly ‘proves’ that Jews are genetically driven to destroy Western societies.”

Source: “Kevin MacDonald,” SPLC

1. “What are the differences in educability between Hispanics (with their 50% dropout rate) and Asiatics (with their excellent school records and long tradition of scholarship)?”

2. “Will Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the mordida(bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.? What in fact are the characteristics of Latin American culture, versus that of the United States?”

3. “How will we make the transition from a dominant non-Hispanic society with a Spanish influence to a dominant Spanish society with non-Hispanic influence?”

4. “In California of 2030, the non-Hispanic Whites and Asians will own the property, have the good jobs and education, speak one language and be mostly Protestant and "other." The Blacks and Hispanics will have the poor jobs, will lack education, own little property, speak another language and will be mainly catholic. Will there be strength in this diversity? Or will this prove a social and political San Andreas Fault?”

John Tanton on Hispanics

Source: John Tanton, “Witan Memo III,” SPLC, 10 October 1986.

Kammer (who covered US Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s bribery story), wrote a defense of Tanton titled: “Immigration and the SPLC: How the Southern Poverty Law Center Invented a Smear, Served La Raza, Manipulated the Press, and Duped its

Donors.” * This 40+ page defense spends most of its pages trying

to debunk SPLC, based on a series of articles by the Montgomery Advertiser in 1994. In the rest of his article, Kammer makes an ineffective defense of Tanton, mostly ignoring the concrete evidence SPLC has gleaned from Tanton’s papers in the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.

* Answered by SPLC.

Q: Can Tanton / FAIR be defended? (1)

A: Weakly …Defense #1: Pulitzer Prize winner Jerry Kammer :

Q: Can Tanton / FAIR be defended? (2)

A: Again, weakly…

Stein, the public face of FAIR, is mostly dismissive of any charges against Tanton. Stein says the material on Tanton is mostly from the 1980s and early 1990s, that Tanton is on FAIR’s Board but is acting only as an individual, that FAIR’s policies are mainstream, and that it has divorced itself from “extremists.” All of this is true, but it’s mostly irrelevant. Stein was interviewed recently by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and was very aggressive and uncooperative, and he misrepresented FAIR’s relationship with “white separatist” Virginia Abernethy. In the Maddow interview and in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times titled “What Arizona’s Immigration Law Really Says,” Stein mostly wants to talk about FAIR’s current “moderate” narrative.

Defense #2: FAIR President Dan Stein:

CIS was founded by John Tanton

"For credibility," he wrote to far-right philanthropist Cordelia Scaife May in a letter, "this will need to be independent of FAIR, though the Center for Immigration Studies, as we're calling it, is starting off as a project of FAIR.“

“In a 1986 memo to a file kept for the purpose of eventually writing an autobiography, Tanton described CIS as an organization over which he had direct control, as opposed to others that he said were ‘one level removed from our control.’ Eight years later, in 1994, Tanton wrote that he was still setting what he called ‘the proper roles for FAIR and CIS.’"

Source: “CIS: The ‘Independent’ Think Tank,” SPLC.

The text of the opening paragraphs of S. B. 1070

1 Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:2 Section 1. Intent 3 The legislature finds that there is a compelling interest in the4 cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws throughout all of5 Arizona. The legislature declares that the intent of this act is to make6 attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local7 government agencies in Arizona.

A curious phrase

Q: What does the highlighted phrase mean? Wheredoes it come from?

A: The answers to these questions are notimmediately apparent. But they are important!

“Attrition through enforcement…”

This phrase is word for word, in fact, the title of a document published by the Center of Immigration Studies, a 16-page statement which lays out the ideology of the sponsoring organizations of SB 1070 – FAIR and CIS – and which spells out the strategy for achieving its implementation.

That document is titled “Attrition Through Enforcement: A Cost Effective Strategy to Shrink the Illegal Population.” It was published in April 2006.

SB 1070, then, codifies the thinking and the goals of FAIR and CIS, both of which have worked for years to curb immigration into the United States.

The document further states that if the “illegal alien population” can be stopped at every turn – in seeking employment and social services – its members will be-come discouraged and “voluntarily” depart, thus halving the undocumented population in five years – and at a much lower cost than that contemplated by any federal approach to the immigration issue.

For SOURCE, see next page

SB 1070 “codifies” a CIS study of 2006

Source

This document has a section titled “Law Enforcement Partnerships: Many Hands Make Lighter Work,” in which it argues that “thousands of police officers, sheriffs, and state troopers across the country” should be cultivated, recruited, and trained to assist ICE officials under what is called a 287(g) agreement of federal immigration law.

Another section is titled “Zero Tolerance: State and Local Laws Discouraging Illegal Settlement.”

“Attrition through enforcement…”

“The principle behind Attrition Through Enforcement is that living illegally in the United States will become more difficult and less satisfying over time when the government – at ALL LEVELS –enforces all of the laws already on the books. The goal is to make it extremely difficult for unauthorized persons to live and work in the United States. There is no need for taxpayers to watch the government spend billions of their dollars to round up and deport illegal aliens; they will buy their own bus or plane tickets back home if they can no longer earn a living here.”

Source: NumbersUSA

NumbersUSA , also founded by John Stanton, says:

See Also: “How Attrition Through Enforcement Works,” NumbersUSA.

Back to Prof. Kris Kobach (1)

"What Kris Kobach has done as a lawyer is really gone out to localities around the country and really used them as experimental laboratories for pushing questionable legal theories about how far states and local governments can go,“ says Vivek Mahotra, a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union.”

Questionable Legal Theories

Prof. Kris KobachSource: Mother Jones

via Facebook

Source: “The Man Behind Arizona’s Immigration Law,” Mother Jones, May 7, 2010.

Back to Prof. Kris Kobach (2)

What Are Kobach’s Legal Theories?

1.State and federal “concurrent enforcement”

2.Local government’s “inherent authority” to enforce immigration laws

During his years working for Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, “Kobach advanced an idea that had long been circulating in conservative legal circles: that local and state officials have the ‘inherent authority’ to enforce federal immigration laws. This unorthodox notion bucked the prevailing view—long held by both Republican and Democratic administrations—that the federal government has principal jurisdiction over immigration under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.”

Back to Prof. Kris Kobach (3)

Source: “The Man Behind Arizona’s Immigration Law,” Mother Jones, May 7, 2010.

“Inherent Authority” to Enforce Immigration Laws

Back to Prof. Kris Kobach (4)

“To Kris W. Kobach, the law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law who helped write Senate Bill 1070 and many other immigration measures around the country, the key issue is ‘concurrent enforcement’ — that is, whether the state law parallels federal law without conflict.

“Because the Arizona statute draws directly on federal statutes concerning documentation and other issues, ‘the Arizona law is perfect concurrent enforcement,’ Professor Kobach said.”

“Concurrent Enforcement” of Immigration Laws

Source: “A Law Facing a Tough Road Through the Courts,”New York Times, 27 April, 2010.

Given the evidence…

FAIR, CIS, NumbersUSA,SB 1070 & Kris Kobachmust be seen in the broad context of the “nativist” and perhaps even “white nationalist” movements which SPLC sees as “raging on the right.”

Source

The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented the rise of “nativist” and “white nationalist” groups over the last few years.

Putting things in context

“The number of hate groups in America has been going up for years, rising 54% between 2000 and 2008 and driven largely by an angry backlash against non-white immigration and, starting in the last year of that period, the economic meltdown and the climb to power of an African American president. According to the latest annual count by the (SPLC), these groups rose again slightly in 2009 — from 926 in 2008 to 932 last year …”

Source: “Rage on the Right,” SPLC

“The SPLC identified 926 hate groups active in 2008, up more than 4 percent from the 888 groups in 2007 and far above the 602 groups documented in 2000. A list and interactive, state-by-state map of these groups can be viewed here.

“As in recent years, hate groups were animated by fears of Latino immigration. This rise in hate groups has coincided with a 40 percent growth in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2007, according to FBI statistics.”

Putting things in context (cont’d)

Source: “Hate Group Numbers up by 54% Since 2000” SPLC.

What do nativist groups want?

•They want to defend against a threat to “European- American”society

•They fear their culture will beswallowed up in “foreignness”

•They want to protect themselvesin racial terms from immigrants

Houston Chronicle

Nativism typically means opposition to immigration or efforts to lower the political or legal status of specific ethnic or cultural groups because the groups are considered hostile or alien to the natural culture, and it is assumed that they cannot be assimilated. Opposition to immigration is common in many countries because of issues of national, cultural or religious identity. The phenomenon has been studied especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, as well as Europe in recent years. Thus nativism has become a general term for 'opposition to immigration' based on fears that the immigrants will distort or spoil existing cultural values. This may be expressed through criticism of multiculturalism.

What is “nativism”?

Source: “Nativism (politics).” Wikipedia.

“There are reasonable critics of immigration, but Dan Stein is not one of them. Which makes it all the more puzzling that a number of otherwise sober-minded conservatives seem to be making common cause with Mr. Stein and FAIR.”

“The Intellectual Roots of Nativism”*

*Source (of reproduced article) : Tucker Carlson, Wall Street Journal, October 2, 1997.

“Perhaps most telling, Mr. Stein appears to embrace Mr. *Garrett+ Hardin's long-standing support of eugenics. In his interview with Omni, Mr. Hardin expressed alarm about "the next generation of breeders" now reproducing uncontrollably "in Third World countries." The problem, according to Mr. Hardin, is not simply that there are too many people in the world, but that there are too many of the wrong kind of people in the world. As he put it: "It would be better to encourage the breeding of more intelligent people rather than the less intelligent." Asked to comment on Mr. Hardin's statement, Mr. Stein doesn't even pause. "Yeah, so what?" he replies. "What is your problem with that? Should we be subsidizing people with low IQ's to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?"

(Source)

Tucker Carlson on FAIR’s Dan Stein

Stormfront FAQ on White NationalismQ. What is White Nationalism?A. The idea that Whites may need to create a separate nation as a means of defending themselves.Q. Do White Nationalists feel they are superior to other races?A. No. The desire of White Nationalists to form their own nation has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority.Q. Do White Nationalists seek to dominate other races?A. Not at all. In fact, formation of a White nation removes any possibility of White dominance of other races, as well as the plausibility of the

accusation that Whites wish to dominate others. Etc. …

What is “white nationalism”?

Source: “What Is White Nationalism?” Stormfront.

“Measuring the Movement: An Expert on White Nationalism Reflects.”Southern Poverty Law Center.

Whites: An “Oppressed” Group

In the 1970s, says Leonard Zeskind, author of Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, middle class people began to feel “dispossessed.” Says Zeskind, “they had to explain to themselves how they had lost the battle over civil rights in the 1960s. That's an important piece. White nationalists were no longer defending the status quo, because the status quo had changed. They saw themselves as an oppressed group, and they began to develop a movement with characteristics of that type.”

“Measuring the Movement: An Expert on White Nationalism Reflects.”Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Dynamics of Becoming “Mainstream”

White Nationalists Become “Revolutionary”

Anti-Semitism is the Key

“Here's the trick about spotting the transformation into a white revolutionary movement: The piece that makes them the most revolutionary is anti-Semitism, because it creates for them a ruling class. The invention of a fake ruling class transformed a reform-oriented conservative movement into a revolutionary movement,” says Leonard Zeskind.

“Measuring the Movement: An Expert on White Nationalism Reflects.”Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Once we have absorbed and understood the fact ofJewish media control, it is our inescapable responsibilityto do whatever is necessary to break that control. Wemust shrink from nothing in combating this evil powerthat has fastened its deadly grip on our people and isinjecting its lethal poison into our people’s minds andsouls. If our race fails to destroy it, it certainly will destroyour race.”

The Danger of “Jewish media control”

Source: “Who Rules America?” National Vanguard Books, p. 12.*

* Note: Ariz. Sen. Russell Pearce distributed this publication by e-mail to his supporters in Oct. 2006. He later apologized, saying he hadn’t read the whole thing.

White Separatist National AllianceFEARS Jewish Domination

Nativists fear diversity/multiculturalism

“Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

Nativist * quoted in editorial:

Source: “The Nativists Are Restless,” New York Times editorial 31 January 2009.

*Marcus Epstein : “In his brief biography on his personal website Epstein

sums up his political beliefs as follows: "My political sympathies support traditional American values, a restrictive immigration policy, the free market, States' rights and decentralism, and a non-interventionist foreign policy.“ Epstein formerly served as the executive director of Team America PAC, a political action committee founded by Tom Tancredo, and of The American Cause, a foundation created by P at Buchanan. “

(Source)

___________________________

“As the debate intensifies over Arizona’s harsh new law aimed at undocumented immigrants, nativist groups are claiming that opponents of the measure support nothing less than the reconquest of the Southwest by Mexicans.

“Though the myth of “la reconquista” — a purported secret Mexican conspiracy to take back part of the United States — has long pervaded the nativist movement, anti-immigrant groups recently have been using it to portray critics of the Arizona law as anti-American. … ”

Arizona Debate Unleashes New ‘Reconquista’ AccusationsPosted By Sonia Scherr On May 5, 2010 @ 2:17 p.m.

Nativists fear “la Reconquista”

Source

More states consider AZ-Copycat laws

Source

The United States needs to address the immigration issue in a way that is just and that is fair. A solution that is based on fear and on hate will exacerbate the problems rather than solve them.

The federal government, particularly the Congress, must embrace the immigration issue and not let it go until there is a genuine, just solution.

We must resist Arizona’s SB 1070 and bills like SB 1070 that are being considered in other states, Texas included.

Local governments should prohibit their employees from traveling to Arizona on official business to prevent them from being exposed to conditions that could result in harassment and in profiling. Moreover, general warnings about travel in Arizona should be issued to employees and their families.

Conclusion