Almost a decade ago Newsday reporter Bart Jones aptly labeled Suffolk County “ground zero” of the anti-immigrant movement. As day laborers were brought in to provide low-wage labor for many of the upscale residents of the Long Island enclave, opposition to their presence began to build. The bellicose and belligerent “Sachem Quality of Life” crowd that sought to drum immigrants out of the County was subsumed by the Federation for American Immigration (FAIR)’s successful efforts to “mainstream” anti-immigrant bigotry, in spite of courageous efforts by community, religious, civic, labor, civil, and immigrant rights organizations. A decade later, the enduring power of FAIR-inspired anti-immigrant hatred is still manifest.

The New York Times reported last week that the task of empanelling an impartial Suffolk County jury for the first trial in the murder of Marcelo Lucero had become “a struggle to find tolerance.” Mr. Lucero was stabbed to death in the fall of 2008 when a group of seven teenagers out for an evening of “beaner hopping”—the “sport” of assaulting Latinos—killed him. Of 130 potential jurors interviewed over three days, only 5 were selected; the pall of anti-immigrant feeling ran deep and explicit, though subdued, among the pool of potential jurors. FAIR must have exulted—its work had, indeed, sunk deep roots.

The fact that teenagers even engaged in such “sport” is testament to the enduring power of anti-immigrant fervor in Suffolk County. Those who attacked Marcelo Lucero grew up in their formative years in an atmosphere rife with bigotry and hate that seeped into the lives of children and youth, as well as adults who, in 2010, could not serve as impartial jurors in the trial of those raised in their midst.

As the trial itself unfolds, reporter Bart Jones will likely not be writing about it for Newsday. After years of covering the anti-immigrant movement and its impact in Suffolk County, Jones has been reassigned by the newspaper, possibly under pressure from the powerful, anti-immigrant County Executive Steve Levy. Joe Strupp of Media Matters suggested last week that Levy may, indeed, have had his way at last, after complaining publicly for years about Jones’ thorough coverage of anti-immigrant activity and Levy’s own role in it. Jones helped break the 206 story that Levy was in the thick of the FAIR-inspired front group, “Mayors and Executives for Immigration Reform,” and he never let up reporting on Levy’s nefarious anti-immigrant politics. As much as the teenagers involved in the Lucero murder, Levy is testament to the enduring power of hate in Suffolk County; indeed, he is the embodiment of the political power birthed by such hatred.

In 2001 I saw the impact of this hatred when I first journeyed to Suffolk County to work with local organizations and religious leaders to counter it. Even in those early days of “ground zero,” hatred had taken deep root. As FAIR advanced its agenda in the County it became clear that it was playing a dual, pivotal role: mainstreaming its anti-immigrant mantra and, simultaneously, keeping the embers of hate glowing by ignoring the flames they would yield. In the early days neo-Nazis attracted to the County assaulted and intended to kill several immigrants. Immigrants were burned out of their residences. Hatred followed bigotry. Violence followed hatred. Murder followed violence. An immigrant died at the hands of youth raised in such an environment. An elected County Executive, a Democrat, fanned the embers, and when flames erupted he acted as if there were no heat.

Such is the enduring power of hate in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. Unchecked, this is where anti-immigrant fervor goes, burning through neighborhoods, counties, and—as in Europe—countries as well; consuming the lives and spirits of youth and of those struggling for livelihoods and families; and making pawns of alleged leaders who smell only political opportunity in the deadly smoke of its flames.

The New York Times’ Robbie Brown wrote:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Neighbors were chagrined last week when the police here found the body of a 75-year-old woman who had frozen to death, alone in her house, during unexpectedly frigid weather. Last year, part of Highway 5 in Rock Hill, S.C., was renamed for her.

But they were shocked this week when they learned that the woman, Juanita W. Goggins, had been a civil rights trailblazer who in 1974 became the first black woman elected to the South Carolina legislature.

Now residents of this normally neighborly Southern capital say they are feeling regretful, and slightly guilty, for allowing one of its most revered figures to disappear into a sleepy ranch house with little company. Possibly mentally ill, living without running water or heat, Ms. Goggins is believed to have died on Feb. 20 — when temperatures dropped below freezing — but her body was not discovered for 11 days.

Several neighbors in her elderly, mostly black community in downtown Columbia said they had learned the full scope of Ms. Goggins’s accomplishments only from her obituaries. At the peak of her political career, in the 1970s, she twice visited President Jimmy Carter at the White House and was the first black woman appointed to the United States Civil Rights Commission.

In the legislature, where she represented Rock Hill, on the northern border of the state, for three terms in the 1970s, Ms. Goggins, a Democrat, helped pass key legislation for improving elementary school education and public health. Last year, a stretch of Highway 5 was renamed in her honor.

To read more about Juanita Goggins, click here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/us/12frozen.html

The National Policy Institute (NPI), a white nationalist organization, believes that in order for “The European identity of the United States and its people [to] be maintained, Federal decentralization and territorial separation should be recognized as legitimate and humane means of preventing and resolving divisive social, ethnic, and racial conflicts.”

Glenn Beck has yet to respond to NPI’s boycott; however, this is an ideal opportunity for mainstream media to finally speak out against Beck’s racially divisive brand of journalism.

The National Policy Institute’s “boycott” comes amid a rash of neo-Nazi activities targeting immigrant communities.

On February 20, forty-eight Ku Klux Klan members covered in white hoods protested against undocumented students marching to Washington D.C to raise awareness of immigrant’s civil rights. The KKK’s Imperial Wizard Jeff Jones stated that “We are here to tell you wake up Georgia and stop the Latino invasion now.” “I know plenty of people who are willing to work and would do anything right now,” according to the Jacksonville newspaper.

The Nationalist Socialist Movement (NSM), a neo-Nazi group, is currently mobilizing its membership to attend its national meeting, “Reclaim the Southwest,” on April 17. In the announcement, the NSM relies on immigration issues to rally its base. The flier for the event says, “Let your voice be heard as we speak out against illegal immigration, Sanctuary Cities”. According toNSM’s webpage, the “rally will be hosted in Southern California this year with the rally on the South Lawn of L.A. City Hall”.

On May 1, the American Nazi Party (ANP) is hosting its National Conference in Detroit, Michigan. Like the Nationalist Socialist Movement, ANP also uses immigration issues to rally its troops. On the front page of ANP’s webpage, the Nazi Party sends its visitors an alarming message by claiming that “America has an estimated 20 MILLION brown, mestizo ILLEGAL ALIENS who have INVADED OUR NATION – this evil”.

The biggest concern for the American Nazi Party (ANP) is the upcoming demographic changes, particularly for white Americans. On the top part of the page, the ANP warns that”only 23% of the American population under the age of 18 is WHITE. Already, four U.S. states are MAJORITY NON-WHITE, and 10% of all counties in America are MAJORITY NON-WHITE. World-wide, White women of child-bearing age comprise only 3% of the earth’s population. Do these FACTS disturb you? They should.”

When the anti-immigrant leader, Shawna Forde, murdered 9-year-old Brisenia Flores, the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA said nothing. When a gang of teenagers killed Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant in Suffolk County, Rhode Island, the Center for Immigration Studies said nothing. When congressional leaders support hate-crimes legislation, the Federation for American Immigration Reform supports elected officials who oppose hate-crime legislation.

While the Tanton Network portrays itself as credible single-issue anti-immigrant organizations the organization’s founder, John Tanton, sings a different tune. As neo-Nazi groups express concern of whites no longer being the majority, I’m reminded of John Tanton labeling immigration as a demographic issue.

As immigration legislation reform looms, reporters hold America’s moral compass in their pens. Mainstream media continues to say very little about Glenn Beck’s journalistic habits, it also says very little about the John Tanton Network’s ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups campaigning on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA’s anti-immigrant agenda.

“In this country, we had slavery for God knows how long. And now we look back on it and we say what was the matter with them? You know, I can’t believe, you know, four million slaves. This is incredible. And we’re right, we’re right. We should look back on that with criticism. It is a crushing mark on America’s soul. And yet today, half of all black children are aborted. Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery.”

This started as an interview discussing civility and outrageous language within political parties and correspondents before Franks went on a tangent about abortion. And for the record, for over 250 years, that’s how long. For over 250 years slavery legally occurred in America.

30 years ago the political climate carved out by the Civil Rights Movement and the recently won Roe v. Wade wouldn’t have allowed this comment to be just another in a line of horribly misguided and offensive item out of a politician’s mouth. To argue the “policies” of slavery as better for the Black community because of strident anti-abortion beliefs wouldn’t have been tolerated.

The implications are staggering. Just pause and think about this. The most immoral time in American history used to decry abortion? I’m not arguing there isn’t racism present in reproductive wellness. Neither is Franks. He’s using this as his platform for his own pro-life beliefs.

In a moment in which I’m sure he intended to come across as self-deprecating Franks says one of the only things that is spot on. When Stark tells him that “you believe what you say and say what you believe” Franks responds “sometimes I miss the curve once in awhile.”

Yes, yes you do.

Bold Chicano students organized high school students across east LA to demand the right to speak their language without institutionally sanctioned abuse in their high schools. Students were forbidden from speaking Spanish in class or from using the restrooms during lunchtime.

While nearly 70% of the high school students in east LA originated from a Spanish speaking country, the teachers were mandated to physically abuse and humiliate students in front of the rest of the class who spoke Spanish. The common drill: a young person slipped and responded to a question in Spanish. The teacher calls the student to the front of the room demanding that they place their hands out for the class to see, and proceeds to use a baton against their hands until blood is drawn.

Despite the restrictive environment that rang loud across the halls “you do not belong here”, Chicano/a students, emboldened by civil rights gains in the 1960s, took democracy, freedom and equality into their own hands. On March 3rd, 1968, over 20,000 students and families took to the streets in east LA to demand equal language rights in their high schools. 13 students were arrested and many more beaten with batons. Months later, high school across east LA were forced to reconsider their English only policies and in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed which called an end to discrimination based on sex and race within public institutions – a huge victory for our nation.

42 years later, those gains and the civil rights struggle that underpinned them, are under attack. Pro-English and U.S. English, two organizations in the John Tanton Network have recently introduced a bill that opens the door for employers to enforce English-only policies in the workplace. The bill, H.R. 1588 – Common Sense English Act, was introduced by Rep. Tom Price R-GA – a member of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC), which was founded by virulent anti-immigrant former congressman Tom Tancredo and supported by the Tanton Network. H.R. 1588 would rescind the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that removed barriers based on sex and race in the workplace.

Unfortunately H.R. 1588, is one of many English Only Bills that have been drafted and introduced by John Tanton Network affiliates in recent years. The English Language Unity Act of 2009 introduced by Rep. Steve King R-IA, another HIRC member, is another on a seemingly endless list.

If not now, then when? In the name of Chicano Students who walked out of their classrooms, risking their future to demand opportunity and dignity, we might ask ourselves the question, what will it take for us to step out equally as bold against bigotry and racism now?