GOP Chair Of Immigration Reform Caucus Belongs To Anti-Immigrant "Hate Group"

Rep. Brian Bilbray Chairs Immigration Reform Caucus & Advises F.A.I.R.

Rep. Bilbray Is Chairman Of The Immigration Reform Caucus. According to the Immigration Reform Caucus' website, "The Immigration Reform Caucus (IRC) was established in May 1999 to review current immigration policy, to initiate new immigration policy and to create a much-needed forum in Congress to address both the positive and negative consequences of immigration. Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) was the first Chairman of the caucus and served until February of 2007 when Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA) became the new Chairman of the IRC." [IRC, accessed 11/1109]

Rep. Bilbray Is An Advisory Board Member For The Federation For American Immigration Reform.  According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Rep. Brian Bilbray's 2008 personal financial disclosure, Bilbray serves on FAIR's advisory board:

[Bilbray 2008 Personal Financial Disclosure via OpenSecrets.org, accessed 11/11/09; Federation for American Immigration Reform, accessed 11/11/09]

Federation Of American Immigration Reform Is Deemed A "Hate Group"

The Federation Of American Immigration Reform Is Classified As An Anti-Immigrant "Hate Group." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Federation of American Immigration Reform is an anti-immigrant hate group:

[SPLC, accessed 11/11/09]

Federation Of American Immigration Reform Has A History Of Racism

FAIR Founder Said A Failure To Seal Borders Would Result In Influx Of People "Defecating And Creating Garbage." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "Founded in 1978 by John H. Tanton, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is one of the country's best-established anti-immigration groups... In a 1997 interview, Tanton said that unless U.S. borders are sealed, America will be overrun by people 'defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs.'" [SPLC, accessed 11/11/09]

FAIR Has Accepted $1.2 Million From Eugenics Proponent.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "Probably the best-known evidence of FAIR's extremism is its acceptance of funds from a notorious, New York City-based hate group, the Pioneer Fund. In the mid-1980s, when FAIR's budgets were still in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the group reached out to the Pioneer Fund, which was established in 1937 to promote the racial stock of the original colonists, finance studies of race and intelligence, and foster policies of 'racial betterment.'" SPLC also writes, "The Fund, which has long subsidized dubious studies of the alleged links between race and intelligence, awarded FAIR $1.2 million between 1985 and 1994." [SPLC, accessed 11/11/09; SPLC, accessed 11/11/09]

FAIR Leader: "Freedom To Breed Will Bring Ruin To All." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "One of FAIR's long-time leaders, and a personal hero to Tanton, is the late Garrett Hardin, a committed eugenicist and for years a professor of human ecology at the University of California. Hardin, who died in 2003, was himself a Pioneer Fund grantee, using the fund's money to expand his 1968 essay, 'The Tragedy of the Commons.' In it, Hardin wrote, 'Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.'"  [SPLC, accessed 11/11/09]

FAIR Advisory Board Member: "New Cultures" In The U.S. "Are Diluting What We Are And Who We Are." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, former Colorado governor Richard Lamm, a FAIR advisory board member, told a reporter that "new cultures" in the U.S. "are diluting what we are and who we are." [SPLC, accessed 11/11/09]

FAIR Employee: "Just Because One Believes In White Separatism That That Does Not Make Them A Racist." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center: "In late 2006, FAIR hired as its western field representative, a key organizing position, a man named Joseph Turner... It was in that forum that Turner made one of his more controversial remarks, amounting to a defense of white separatism. 'I can make the argument that just because one believes in white separatism that that does not make them a racist,' Turner wrote in 2005. 'I can make the argument that someone who proclaims to be a white nationalist isn't necessarily a white supremacist. I don't think that standing up for your 'kind' or 'your race' makes you a bad person.'" [SPLC, accessed 11/11/09]

FAIR Has Made Immigrants "Scapegoats For Society's Ills." As Gloria J. Romero and Antonio H. Rodriguez of the Latino Community Justice Center in Los Angeles wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "Observers counted more than 500 cars and 1,000 men, women and youths, many of whom hurled racist anti-Mexican remarks at Latino counter-demonstrators. For the last two decades, immigrants have been made scapegoats for society's ills by government officials, right-wing lobbying groups like the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (FAIR) and racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan." [Los Angeles Times, 5/21/90]