Immigrant Communities
Tanton Network Uses E-verify to Terrorize Immigrant Communities
originally posted by Jill Garvey for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 5th
The John Tanton Network is more interested in terrorizing immigrant communities than helping employers.
Nothing else can explain its recent response to a comprehensive report on the failure of E-verify. Rather than accept the program’s failures and promote more effective ways to fix the immigration system, the network of anti-immigrant groups led by John Tanton is attacking the report and trying to discredit hard facts. The anti-immigrant trifecta of the Tanton Network – FAIR, Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA – came out swinging against the report which effectively debunks their data on E-verify.
Mark Krikorian of Center for Immigration Studies said, “Nevertheless, it’s certainly true that E-Verify isn’t tight enough yet, but in a glass-half-full sense, this isn’t really bad news,” and “…we know perfectly well what the problems are, and they don’t have much to with with the E-Verify system itself.”
We do indeed know perfectly well what the problems are. The problems are anti-immigrant groups with ties to racist organizations injecting themselves into a mainstream debate and distorting data.
Here is the truth: E-verify encourages discrimination in hiring. The harder it is for employers to properly utilize the system (and it sounds nearly impossible), the more potential employees they will pass over. Don’t be surprised to one day hear reports of employers who admit to resorting to racial profiling because it was easier than E-verify. Anti-immigrant leaders like Krikorian know this. They know that applying for a job while brown is hell and E-verify just makes it worse.
Putting aside undocumented immigrants for a moment, this has serious implications for all workers of color. Think unemployment among communities of color is bad now? Just wait.
Just as the anti-immigrant movement has tried to turn landlords, local law enforcement, and ordinary citizens into the federal immigration police, so too would it like to turn employers into immigration snitches.
We can’t afford it. America is in economic trouble, and lawmakers and employers can’t afford to spend their time tracking down and reporting every single potentially undocumented immigrant. It’s a waste of precious resources and will hurt American businesses.
When anti-immigrant groups make their motives clear, when they renounce all associations with white nationalist organizations, then we can talk about E-verify. Until then, their opinions on the matter simply aren’t valid.
Anti-immigrant Movement Attacks American Property Owners
originally posted by Jill Garvey for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Mar 1st
The anti-immigrant movement wants private property owners to enforce immigration laws, and be punished when they don’t. It’s shocking the lengths some groups have gone to in order to pressure, intimidate or force ordinary citizens into complying with their anti-immigrant activities.
Leading this effort is Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), the legal arm of the John Tanton Network. IRLI’s primary purpose is to push legal causes that unfairly target immigrant communities. IRLI works with extremist anti-immigrant groups and leaders to push anti-immigrant ordinances at the municipal level. In 1985, John Tanton launched IRLI, but made sure he kept it firmly under the control of Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has tried to portray itself as a mainstream organization despite its links to extremist groups, including white nationalists.
IRLI “was structured in such a way that it could operate under FAIR’S tax exemption but have its own board, appointed initially by FAIR’S board,” Tanton says in an oral history. “We tried to keep control of IRLI by making sure that the FAIR board was the ultimate authority in appointing the IRLI board.”
In New Jersey, IRLI brags about bringing a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against apartment owners for “illegal harboring” in 2008. In Pennsylvania, IRLI has persistently tried to pass anti-harboring ordinances and cost the city of Hazelton an untold amount of money in the process.
These are just a few examples of IRLI’s efforts to set a model for local legislation that will make it impossible to rent an apartment or give someone a ride in a car without first confirming their citizenship. This will make for some very serious divisions in our communities. Divisions that would make John Tanton’s white supremacist friends very happy.
Friends like VDARE, the white supremacist online publication founded by Peter Brimelow and supported by his foundation Center for American Unity. This 2006 brief illustrates Center for American Unity’s collaboration with John Tanton Network organizations. The Center for American Unity considers multiculturalism a threat to American heritage.
Then there is the question of who will be targeted next. Will taxi drivers be sued for picking up customers? Will school bus drivers have to defend themselves in court if they drive undocumented children to school? What about motel owners in these communities or ambulance drivers? I wouldn’t put it past The John Tanton Network to do whatever is necessary to divide communities along racial lines. One of FAIR’s state contacts, Minnesotans for Immigration Reform, has already taken these activities to the fringe. It recently promoted a very extreme website to supporters. The website asserts that “aiding and abetting” undocumented immigrants is a felony, and offers visitors the opportunity to “report” their landlord. Aside from all the blatantly inaccurate information contained on the site, it is clearly advocating for extreme vigilantism.
The anti-immigrant movement claims to be protecting regular, working Americans, but its actions say otherwise.
Americans value the freedom to prosper. And the freedom to do with their property as they see fit. Threatening property owners with lawsuits to further a political agenda is underhanded and hinders the economic prosperity of average Americans.
Cross-post: Immigrants and the LGBT Community Should Support Each Other
originally posted by Imagine 2050 Editors for IMAGINE 2050 » Immigration [click here]
Feb 8th
Prerna Lal posted this article to Change.org’s immigrant rights blog. Heartening to see that even as immigration reform suffers, there are a few bright spots on the horizon. Kudos to the LGBT and immigrant communities for having the courage to speak up for one another.
In a show of solidarity between the immigrant rights movement and the LGBT community, MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund) President Thomas Saenz, delivered a keynote speech advocating for comprehensive and inclusive immigration reform at the largest conference for LGBT equality, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change conference in Dallas, Texas.
Saenz, who was tapped to head the DOJ Civil Rights Division under the Obama Administration, assumed a leadership role at the Mexican-American Legal and Defense Education Fund last year. He took the platform at Creating Change to express his interest in deepening collaboration and partnership between LGBT and immigrant communities.
The MALDEF President dismissed “pundits who opine freely that the LGBT and Latino communities cannot work together because of the philosophy and beliefs of the Latino community,” stating that this perspective was deeply flawed since the communities are integral parts of each other and overlap consistently.
Read the entire article here.
