Yesterday’s “Time is Now” rally for immigration reform was a huge success, drawing as many as 100,000 immigration activists, advocates, and supporters to the Capitol lawn. But of course, not everyone there was fighting for immigration.
By our count, about 3-5 people weren’t–and they turned out to be pretty questionable. An article at the Washington Post by Pamela Constable and Tara Bahrampour quoted Joe Guzzardi, a “retired teacher from Pittsburgh,” who tried to talk about why he opposed immigration reform, but was rendered inaudible by a passing group of immigrants on their way to the rally. As the Post wrote:
Joe Guzzardi, a retired teacher from Pittsburgh, started to explain his concern that illegal immigrants might have an unfair advantage when it comes to jobs and education, but he was drowned out by a group en route to the march chanting “Yes we can” in Spanish.
Except that Guzzardi is less retired teacher, more professional activists with the ultra-nativist group VDARE. Guzzardi has a long publishing history with the group, which exists to argue for America as a “white nation.” Of course, “retired teacher” probably helped Guzzardi get quoted, whereas “anti-immigrant writer for white nationalist website” wouldn’t. But the latter is more accurate.
Classy people, that the other side is sending.
In contrast, here’s what the rest of the rally looked like:
The numbers didn’t look great for opponents of immigration reform online, either. A few hours before the rally started yesterday, the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA started trying to co-opt the rally’s hashtag, #timeisnow, tweeting using that hashtag and #stopamnesty. You can see how well it worked out for them:
