WHO REALLY WROTE SB 1070?

It wasn't a zealous apostate. It was a descendant of a Croatian immigrant at FAIR.

From Alter Net:

Az’s immigration law was penned by a hate group


Posted by Devona Walker on @ 4:12 pmArticle printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasyURL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/28/azs-immigration-law-was-penned-by-a-hate-group/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

Why does the mainstream media ignore that when covering it?

The immigration mess in this country is not a fake problem. But the debate surrounding how you solve it is completely artificial. Immigration reform has been the most politically divisive issue in this country for going on six years. That is insanely idiotic when you consider that both sides essentially agree on how to solve it. You cannot find one (unless you are talking to those racist nativists) anti-immigration group that honestly believes this country can or should deport millions of illegal immigrants. Likewise, you cannot find one pro-immigrant advocate who believes we should not do more to enforce the rule of law and secure our borders.

It all boils down to who is going to blink first. Who is going to take up this fight, which is political suicide in the short-term for Democrats and in the long-term for Republicans? [The later, look at California after Proposition 187.]

And which one do you do first? Do you secure the borders first? Or do you start a legal process by which illegal immigrants currently in the country can begin a process of becoming a legal citizen? Yes, amnesty folks. Despite all the vitriol on the anti-immigrant side of things, there is not one expert among them who does not believe that “amnesty” in some form must be a part of solving our current immigration mess.

Today, a judge in Arizona temporarily shot down the most controversial parts of the state’s stringent immigration enforcement law. It should be noted that she would not have taken that step if she had not thought there was considerable merit in the federal case against the state of Arizona.


The truth is the law doesn’t have a chance of becoming law as it is written. It does not merely encourage, but requires racial profiling. But it also violates due process. It sets up a system in which the innocent can be indefinitely detained without any proof they are illegal. Validating someone’s immigration status at present takes several days and the Department of Homeland Security has already been sued several times for detaining legal citizens. [See the song, video, and movie "Born in East L. A."] If the federal government can’t get it right, with all the resources and training available to them, how do you think some small-town Arizona cops will fare? [They also wanted us to "read the bill". They should have READ THE FUCKING CONSTUTITION, but it's a useless point with them. More to come.]

But the really inexcusable thing about this whole immigration farce is that the folks penning these “enforcement-only” immigration statutes around the country, know these laws are not enforceable or legal.

The little-known secret behind this whole “anti-immigrant” movement is that the laws are not written by individual legislators, but the legislative arm of a far right anti-immigrant group called FAIR, that is the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Each bill serves as test legislation for future bills. They have built this movement entirely upon bias, fear and emotion and have no intention of actually helping resolve the immigration mess in this country. Their ultimate goal is to repeal the 14th amendment, which is citizenship by birthright. They want to create a situation where you are not necessarily a U.S. citizen simply be the act of being born in this country. They feel citizenship should be reserved onto to children born in this country and whose parents were also American citizens. They also feel admittedly that Latinos, not necessarily illegal immigrants, are a threat to our country.

It should be noted that in our last presidential election we had two choices, Sen. John McCain and Barack Obama. If these birthright folks had their way, neither would be eligible for U.S. citizenship. Obama’s father was Kenyan and McCain wasn’t actually born in this country.

It should also be noted that the far right folks fueling the anti-immgration debate and writing the immigration statutes are not at all in line with most Americans concerned about the rate of illegal immigration, the impact on social services, public schools, or necessarily the potential that exist for the Mexican drug war to spill over into U.S. cities. These folks are not even in line with groups like the (conservative) Center for Immigration Studies, they are simply exploiting the immigration tensions that exist to further their nativist movement.

The last 11 states that enacted immigration statutes had direct connections to FAIR. FAIR is a fairly controversial group. It has been listed since 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. It’s not necessarily immigration legislation that caused them to receive this distinction but because of its historical ties to a Eugenics Foundation (Eugenics is a pseudo-science founded in the late 1800s that deals with the improvement–as by control of human mating–of hereditary qualities of a race or breed). [It was also this movement that created scientific racism, which isn't based on science at all. It is scientific racism that was the foundation of Plessy v Ferguson (1896), and 58 more years of racial segregation. It was also the basis of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany to commit genocide of six million Jews and millions more non-Germans.]

SPLC has also investigated FAIR’s founder John Tanton, a guy who has been warning for years, not about illegal immigration, but a “Latino onslaught.”

“In a majority of the states where legislation has been proposed or discussed, the leading lawmakers behind the bills are associated with FAIR’s legislative arm, a group called State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) that operates in at least 35 states,” it was reported in Colorlines.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, FAIR has received more than $1 million in grants from the Pioneer Fund, a group that promotes the notion that blacks and Latinos are inherently less intelligent than whites. [Since scientific racism and segregation are not based on constitutional law, it is no wonder why trolls on various internet groups continue to repeat FAIR's nonsensical bull shit. It is clear that they want segregation back. The Fourteenth Amendment abolished the nonsense that Blacks and everybody else was inferior. There was no constitutional basis for "separate but equal" in the first place. It was based on clearly untested fear and prejudice that is based on copmplete ignorance. While the forefathers initially made Blacks as three-fifths of a person, it was intended in the long run that at least every man would be free and equal as intended. They (FAIR) don't like the Warren and Burger Court rulings, and don't like the current civil rights laws on the books. They want to go back to the way they were in 1896. They are like the KKK without the bedsheets.]

In at least seven of the 11 states where these “immigration enforcement” statutes have been proposed, there are legislators “drafting” them that are member’s of FAIR’s state legislator’s group and Arizona is no exception.

In South Carolina, it was Rep. Michael Pitts. Pitts is a listed as a member of SLLI. The language in the South Carolina bill is strikingly similar to the one in Arizona. In Missouri, SLLI member Rep. Brian Nieves signed on as a co-sponsor of a draconian anti-immigrant bill recently referred to a legislative committee. In five other states–Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Texas–the same is true.

Kris Kobach, a lawyer who works with the FAIR legal arm, IRLI, helped write Arizona’s SB 1070. [From Croatia, how amazing?]

Why is Arizona any different?

Well, until now, FAIR’s strategy appears to be to have been to eat away at the rights of immigrants along the margins. That is, all the states up until this point, have not had significant immigrant populations or problems in terms of illegal immigration. Instead, FAIR chose conservative strongholds where they would be able to find legislators who found it politically advantageous to propose stringent immigration enforcement statutes. But in terms of really affecting the lives of immigrants, these bills were not that consequential — as those states do not have large populations of immigrants. This, of course, also meant there would be little resistance and pushback from Latino voters.

The difference in Arizona is that it does have a large Latino population. After Arizona, they will probably be emboldened enough to take on Florida, New York, Texas and California. [They already failed in California with Proposition 187.] Arizona is a very critical test case for the anti-immigration crowd. And this federal suit is equally critical when it comes to stopping the madness long enough to address the problem at hand.

Read the story.

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Devona Walker is a veteran print journalist. She has worked for The Associated Press and the New York Times company. Currently she is the senior political and finance reporter for theloop21.com. She lives in Columbia, Missouri where she is working on a Master's in Public Policy and her first novel.