Earth Day Will Not be Rooted in Immigrant Bashing

Earth Day Will Not be Rooted in Immigrant Bashing
April 22, 2010
By Rebecca Poswolsky
http://www.imagine2050.net/

This Earth Day we must counter attempts to infiltrate our festivities. Anti-immigrant groups like California Population Stabilization (CAPS) and NumbersUSA are attempting to focus on overpopulation by specifically bashing immigrants and blaming them for environmental degradation. As environmentalists and activists, it is our responsibility on this day to define the significance and direction of our movement. We must address anti-immigrant bigots interested in a punitive immigration policy and decline their intentions to put forth openly racist agendas.

CAPS participated in Earth Day events in Santa Barbara this past Saturday and in San Diego last Sunday. It tabled and promoted its stance on the correlation between immigration and U.S. population levels. While CAPS considers itself an environmental group, it is important to understand where CAPS’s interests really lie. CAPS argues that immigrants are responsible for the “destruction of forests, national parks, and natural habitats….over-consumption of precious natural resources; deadly sewage on our beaches; continually expanding urban sprawl; and more.”

Rick Oltman, the media director for CAPS is also a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, formerly known as the White Citizens Council. The Council of Conservative Citizens’ statement of principles says:

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2010/04/22/earth-day-will-not-be-rooted-in-immigrant-bashing/

Rebecca Poswolsky is a contributor to Imagine 2050. Contributors to the the blog include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

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Anti-immigration Group Gets Called Out for Fuzzy Math

Today, the Immigration Policy Center released a report taking to task the arguments from the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA, which they say "don't add up".

In their report, Fuzzy Math: The Anti-Immigration Arguments of NumbersUSA Don’t Add Up, IPC says NumbersUSA claims immigration to the U.S. "is all about arithmetic". They say the group believes "immigration increases the U.S. population, and more people presumably means more pollution, more urban sprawl, more competition for jobs, and higher taxes for Americans who must shoulder the costs of “over-population."

Looking at the data, IPC says the math doesn't mesh and points out that NumbersUSA's argument, "is fundamentally flawed and misses the point".

“Over-population” IPC says, is not the the cause of "environmental or economic woes facing the United States", and that "arbitrary restrictions on immigration" will not create a "cleaner environment" or "healthier economy".

Read the full report here.

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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.

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