by BEAU HODAI
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (not to be confused with the media watch group FAIR), recently held its fourth “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event in Washington, D.C. The April 5–7 gathering saw the cozy confluence of freshman lawmakers, veteran creatures of the Hill such as journalist/speechwriter Patrick Buchanan and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R.-Maine), and nearly 50 radio personalities broadcasting from “Radio Row.
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When initially contacted in the weeks prior to the April event, Mehlman refused to discuss virtually any aspect of the event, stating:
I’m going to be honest with you, your organization [Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting] is not working on our side here—your organization has attacked us on many, many occasions. I don’t see any point in giving all kinds of information to you.… Since you are doing this on behalf of the other FAIR, I’m not sure I want to necessarily be disclosing all sorts of information about the mechanics of all this.
Perhaps a more accurate description of the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s love affair with the media would be that the organization is willing to bend over backward to accommodate those in the media who look the other way when it comes to the organization’s dubious roots, or its role in the legal/cultural shitstorms it has helped to foment in recent years.
Founded in 1979 by retired Michigan ophthalmologist John Tanton, the Federation is regarded by hate-watch groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for New Community as a “nativist” organization of the highest order, with its roots firmly embedded in the world of “white nationalists.”
In addition to founding the Federation, Tanton is the father of what SPLC and CNC refer to as the “Tanton Network,” referring to anti-immigrant groups either founded, funded or directed by Tanton—including U.S. Inc., NumbersUSA Action, U.S. English, Pro-English and the Social Contract Press. Tanton remained a Federation board member until his quiet departure this year, reportedly for health reasons (New York Times, 4/30/11).
From the early 1980s through the early 1990s, the Federation drew well over $1 million in funding from the Pioneer Fund, a group dedicated to “research in the problems of heredity and eugenics in the human race.” As its original 1937 articles of incorporation state, the fund also aimed to support “children who are deemed to be descended predominantly of white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States.” (In 1985 the word “white” was removed from this charter, though nothing altering the clear purpose of the fund was introduced.)
Such work supported by fund leadership in the early 20th century has an unmistakable link to the work performed by the Federation today. The fund’s first president, Harry Hamilton Laughlin, is credited as being the driving force behind the 1922’s Model Eugenical Sterilization Law as well as the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. Laughlin’s testimony before Congress on the dilution of the American gene pool by intellectually and morally inferior immigrants was key to the passage of this act.
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