Anti-immigrant activist Kris Kobach draws a paycheck as the duly elected secretary of state in Kansas. But he sure spends a lot of time meddling in the business of other states.

Kansans Count, a coalition of civil and voting rights groups, recently obtained copies of Kobach’s calendars, schedules and phone records through an open records request. The group found that, since he took office in January 2011, Kobach has participated in 108 media appearances with out-of-state media outlets – most of which had to do with immigration, not Kansas.

The group said the study was prompted by Kobach’s failure to do the work necessary to implement the strict voter ID law he pushed.

The findings were no surprise to those who follow Kobach’s activism: He’s spending his time in other states defending anti-immigrant laws that he has promoted. ( continue to full post… )

Frank Borzellieri is making a “desperate appeal” to supporters of the academic racist group American Renaissance to back his legal defense fund. Borzellieri was fired last August from his post as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in the Bronx after his connection to American Renaissance and his racist views were made public by the New York Daily News. His opinions were deemed “incompatible” with Catholic teachings by the Archdiocese of New York.

In 2004, Borzellieri wrote a book, Don’t Take It Personally: Race, Immigration, Crime and Other Heresies, in which he declared “diversity is a weakness” and claimed that rising black and Latino populations in America will lead to a “New Dark Age.” He had spoken at American Renaissance conferences and been published in its newsletter, which argues that blacks and Latinos are inferior to whites.

While serving as principal for Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which teaches kindergarten through eighth grade, Borzellieri reportedly pushed to ban a biography on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., remove an openly gay teacher and gay-rights activist from the classroom at Public School 199 in Sunnyside and bar school employees from making any references to homosexuality. He also introduced a resolution calling for students to be taught that U.S. culture is superior. ( continue to full post… )

In a move that is sure to endear it permanently to America’s nativist extremist demographic, the Outdoor Channel last night featured hate group leader Glenn Spencer on “Border Battles,” a recently debuted reality show about “what it takes to protect our nation’s borders from drug smuggling, illegal immigration and terrorism.” ( continue to full post… )

Anti-immigrant law drafter extraordinaire Kris Kobach continues to play dumb about the racist organization bankrolling his efforts, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and its founder John Tanton. In a piece published by Salon yesterday, Kobach, who is also the Kansas secretary of state, was quoted claiming that he is “not familiar with [Tanton’s] writings or his views.” He also said: “I have not done any legal work for any organization that expresses or supports racial discrimination, nor will I ever do so in the future. ”

Really, Kris? ( continue to full post… )

Investigators with the Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) will seek criminal charges against a Florida man who was detained Wednesday after explosive material was found in his pickup truck, which was parked near the state Capitol in Topeka.

The suspect, detained in a publicly accessible tunnel on the Capitol campus, was released following questioning by KHP’s Capitol Police officers and detectives with the Topeka Police Department, KHP spokesman Patrick Saleh said today. Because the suspect wasn’t booked into jail, his name isn’t yet public record and can’t be released, Saleh said.

Highway Patrol investigators will meet Friday or Monday with Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor to review evidence retrieved from the man’s truck and items found when a search warrant was served at a Topeka home where he was living, Saleh told Hatewatch. “We’re hoping to have it done by the end of the week, but it may be Monday before our investigators meet with the district attorney,” Saleh said. ( continue to full post… )

A recent fundraising letter from the Conservative Caucus Foundation bears an interesting warning for subscribers: Not only are “illegal aliens” “stealing American jobs,” “DEMANDING amnesty” and having “jackpot babies” so they can “get on the welfare gravy train” – they’re also endangering U.S. citizens with the filthy diseases they carry over the border.

“Some illegal aliens bring diseases we thought were long gone,” the letter proclaims. “Tuberculosis (TB), dysentery, typhoid, malaria, tapeworm, river blindness and guinea worm come into America with illegal aliens.” Elsewhere, it warns of polio. ( continue to full post… )

A man whose pickup truck contained several homemade anti-personnel bombs was arrested yesterday in a tunnel leading to the Kansas Capitol in Topeka on the same day that hearings on controversial anti-immigrant immigration opened, The Associated Press reports. The man, who police declined to identify, had a sticker on his truck that read, “Welcome to America. Now speak English.”

Capitol spokesman Patrick Saleh said the pickup was parked in a restricted lot for state workers a short distance from the Capitol. Its owner, he said, was arrested in a tunnel connecting the Capitol to an office building after officers spotted an empty holster and other suspicious objects in his truck. He was unarmed and did not resist, and was being questioned later Wednesday by officials of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. ( continue to full post… )

The Mississippi lawmaker who today introduced anti-immigrant legislation modeled after Alabama’s disastrous HB 56 is a member of a network of legislators that has embraced a raft of beliefs and conspiracy theories that currently animate radical-right extremists.

Rep. Becky Currie is one of about 65 members of State Legislators for Legal Immigration, or SLLI, in 40 states. SLLI was founded in 2007 by Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, an anti-immigrant hardliner who has written on SLLI’s website that “the personal and economic safety” of all Americans is threatened by “the ongoing invasion of illegal aliens.” He has  compared the situation to that facing the colonies during the American Revolution. ( continue to full post… )

The American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was dealt a blow last year when several organizations withdrew over the inclusion of a gay conservative group, GOProud, on its roster of sponsors. Having officially banished all gays who so much as make a peep about their rights, however, the annual right-wing shindig is back in business and conservative as all get-out, featuring representatives of a dizzying array of anti-gay, anti-tax, anti-abortion and anti-Muslim organizations, including hate group leaders like Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of American (SIOA) and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC).

No guest better illustrates CPAC’s refreshed commitment to hard-line conservatism than Peter Brimelow, founder of VDARE, a race-baiting hate group that warns against the pollution of America by non-whites, Catholics, and Spanish-speaking immigrants. Brimelow, an unabashed white nationalist who argues that white Americans should demand U.S. immigration law be changed to allow in mostly whites, today participated in a CPAC panel on “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity.” ( continue to full post… )

Anti-immigrant extremists are furious over a decision by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to exclude Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), a nativist organization masquerading as an environmental group, from its annual meeting.

In a press release this week, CAPS board member Stuart Hurlbert, an emeritus professor of biology of San Diego State University, raged that AAAS was “openly censor[ing] speech and access to information” and asked why the group “fears any discussion of stabilizing U.S. population by lowering immigration.”

AAAS “fears” nothing of the sort. Spokeswoman Ginger Pinholster told Hatewatch that the group welcomes any “science-focused” entity to apply for exhibit space at its conference. AAAS declined CAPS’ application because “upon investigation, we concluded they were more focused on political issues like immigration than on evidence-based scientific issues,” Pinholster said. ( continue to full post… )