The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has never been a pleasant organization. Its top leaders have warned shrilly of a “Latin onslaught,” defended a racist 1924 quota system, insisted that America needs a “European-American majority,” and fretted that Latinos are “outbreeding” white people. Its founder has sought ways to sterilize unmarried mothers, corresponded with white supremacists and Holocaust deniers, and suggested, among other things, that it might be a good thing to prohibit less intelligent citizens from having children.

But FAIR, the nation’s leading nativist organization and one that is frequently quoted in the press, has insisted it is not about hatred, that some unfortunate remarks of its founder are ancient history and have nothing to do with the group today.

Two events this week once again gave the lie to those claims. ( continue to full post… )

No one knows for sure what was going through the head of 18-year-old Joaquin Luna Jr. when he committed suicide last month. His family told reporters they suspect he was motivated by despair over the limitations posed by his status as an undocumented immigrant. His suicide note (which the family had not yet seen when they made their initial comments to the press), included no reference to immigration status – though in a letter addressed to Jesus Christ, Luna reportedly asked for forgiveness and wrote, “I’ve realized that I have no chance in becoming a civil engineer the way I’ve always dreamed of here … so I’m planning on going to you and helping you construct the new temple in heaven.”

Luna’s half-brother, Diyer Mendoza, 35, told reporters that Luna, who was an infant when his parents brought him from Mexico to the United States, was in despair over the obstacles to education and employment his immigration status posed. “We lived with him, so we know, and it doesn’t matter what other people say,” he said. “Every time he would put in an application, the first thing that would pop up was ‘Are you a U.S. citizen?’ No. ‘Resident?’ No. ‘Social Security number?’ No. It was all just mounting and mounting on top of him. I truly believe that if that Dream Act would have already passed, he would still be here today.”
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Anti-Muslim hate crimes soared by an astounding 50% last year, skyrocketing over 2009 levels in a year marked by the vicious rhetoric of Islam-bashing politicians and activists, especially over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York City.

Although the national statistics compiled by the FBI each year are known to dramatically understate the real level of reported and unreported hate crimes, they do offer telling indications of some trends. The latest statistics, showing a jump from 107 anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2009 to 160 in 2010, seem to reflect a clear rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric from groups like Stop Islamization of America. Much of that rhetoric was aimed at stopping an Islamic center in lower Manhattan.

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Never let it be said that the words of a simple “man on the street” can’t have far-reaching consequences in the modern world.

The Hazleton, Pa., Standard-Speaker newspaper is still coping with the fallout of an interview it published Aug. 15 in a regular print-edition-only feature called “Know Your Neighbor,” in which a local individual is stopped at random and asked to comment briefly on life in Luzerne County. That day, the paper interviewed a man identified as Richard Yanoski of the nearby town of McAdoo. ( continue to full post… )

American Family Association (AFA) blogger Elijah Friedeman thinks Alabama’s new, draconian law targeting undocumented immigrants and anyone who would assist them or knowingly fail to turn them in, is wonderful.

What puzzles him, according to his essay posted Friday on AFA’s Rightly Concerned website, is that many Christian church leaders, even conservative ones, oppose the law (see also here) – after all, Friedeman writes, undocumented immigrants are the conceptual equivalent of convicted felons who have escaped from prison. ( continue to full post… )

Deryl Paul Dedmon, 19, of Brandon, Miss., was charged with capital murder with a hate-crime enhancement in the death of an African-American man. The grand jury indictment alleges that the victim died after being beaten by a group of white teens and run over by a truck.

Police in Sacramento, Calif., report that a man was injured in a hate-motivated assault earlier this week. A male couple was walking, holding hands, when the suspect allegedly stopped his vehicle, yelled sexual epithets at the couple, and then struck one of the men with a heavy object before fleeing. Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspect.

New Hampshire authorities are stepping up a probe into racist graffiti scrawled on the homes of three Concord families who resettled there from Africa. The state’s attorney general’s office has become involved in the investigation and prosecutors say those responsible could face charges under the state’s hate crime statute.

An African pastor in Concord, N.H., said a hate-filled message was written on his home in black marker. Two other homes in the neighborhood, also occupied by African immigrants, were targeted. Each message referred to the families as “subhuman” and said the victims were getting a free ride. Concord is a major hub for the International Resettlement Program, which places refugees seeking political asylum in American communities.

Residents of a Sand Springs, Okla., neighborhood say they were shocked when they woke up Sunday morning to fliers in their yards from the United White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The literature said the group does not burn crosses or lynch people and urged flier recipients to “Support your local Klan.”

The Harris County, Texas, District Attorney plans to prosecute the case of a self-proclaimed white supremacist accused of beating a black man at a downtown Houston bus stop last month as a hate crime. According to a local activist, this is the first time charges have been upgraded to a hate crime in Harris County.
Brooklyn, N.Y., police are investigating an alleged hate crime after discovering two swastikas in the lobby of a Williamsburg neighborhood apartment building earlier this week.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter (pdf) to officials yesterday suggesting non-mandatory improvements in the way that the Suffolk County, N.Y., Police Department (SFPD) investigates hate crimes and other practices. The preliminary findings letter was part of a DOJ investigation of the department’s “patterns and practices” in the wake of the 2008 murder of immigrant Marcelo Lucero by a gang of white toughs.

Lucero’s murder by teenagers who had regularly engaged in the ethnic hunting parties they termed “beaner-jumping” shone a light on a community of immigrants who felt they were under siege, subjected to anti-immigrant violence and largely ignored or shunted aside by the police department. It also brought out the way that leading officials in the county had regularly demonized Latino immigrants.

The DOJ’s preliminary findings comported closely with those of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which published a September 2009 report on the situation entitled “Climate of Fear: Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County, N.Y.” Our report described not only how large numbers of Latinos in Suffolk County were subjected to hate crimes and other abuse, but also how many Latinos felt that SFPD officers ignored or belittled them, often declining to take reports after complaints were made. It also discussed the role of hate groups in the country and, especially, high-level public officials in contributing to an atmosphere of anti-immigrant hate — but those areas were outside the scope of the DOJ investigation. ( continue to full post… )

The lower levels of the Ronald Reagan Office building were mostly deserted Saturday morning, but there were a few signs of life outside the Polaris Suite. Books like Jared Taylor’s White Identity and Richard Lynn’s The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide were for sale in the foyer; inside, where a dozen or so tables were set with glasses and pitchers of ice water, a low buzz of conversation arose from the overwhelmingly male crowd that was slowly trickling in. Though there were a handful of 20-somethings in evidence, most of them seated in a student gallery at the back, more than half of the registrants appeared to be AARP-eligible. ( continue to full post… )

In its September newsletter, the chairman of the board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Roy Porter, wrote a glowing paean to the group’s racist founder, John Tanton, in advance of FAIR’s Oct. 1 tribute to “John and his legacy.” Tanton played a critical role in the creation of several powerhouse anti-immigrant groups besides FAIR, including the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA, and is arguably the man most responsible for the modern nativist movement.

Porter gushed with praise for Tanton. “I’d like to express the board’s immeasurable gratitude to John, a man of extraordinary leadership ability, wisdom, courage, and compassion,” Porter wrote. In words reminiscent of those employed earlier by FAIR President Dan Stein to praise Tanton, Porter described the FAIR founder as “very much a Renaissance man, with expertise in such diverse fields as medicine, chemistry, ecology, history, literature, philosophy, politics, demography, agriculture, and land conservation.”

What’s not on Porter’s list of Tanton’s amazing abilities is racism. Nowhere is mention made of Tanton’s memos to FAIR’s board that questioned the “educability” of Latinos and warned darkly of a “Latin onslaught.” Also ignored are Tanton’s many racist comments including this 1993 gem: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” And that’s only the beginning. ( continue to full post… )