Southern Poverty Law Center takes on Nativist Lobby and Intolerance

Yesterday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) held a national press call releasing a report that examines the racist roots of the three organizations most responsible for blocking Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA are reported to be part of the same network of organizations founded and funded by John Tanton, a retired opthamologist from Michigan. The SPLC says Tanton, the architect of the anti-immigrant movement, has been at the heart of the white nationalist movement for decades.

The three D.C. groups, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA they say,

“have infiltrated the mainstream by presenting themselves as legitimate commentators, when, in reality, they were all conceived by a man who is convinced that non-white immigrants threaten America. They have never strayed far from their roots."

SPLC says their new report also examines how John Tanton, who still sits on FAIR's board of directors, founded the racist Social Contract Press and has corresponded with Holocaust deniers, white nationalist intellectuals and Klan lawyers for decades. The correspondence is documented by Tanton's own writings, which are stored at a University of Michigan library.

For the full report titled The Nativist Lobby: Three Faces of Intolerance, visit Southern Poverty Law Center at www.splcenter.org or by visiting this link.

Posted in: Center for Immigration Studies,FAIR,John Tanton,NumbersUSA,Southern Poverty Law Center,SPLC