We at America’s Voice have long believed in calling out associations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) for what they are—extremist organizations masquerading as advocacy groups—and we’re glad to see that others have begun picking up the rallying cry.
FAIR, of course, is the John Tanton network organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated a “hate group.” Supposedly, they exist to present reasonable arguments in favor of reducing immigration into the United States. While such arguments may exist, they don’t come from FAIR. Seed money for the group partially came from the Pioneer Fund, which believes that some races are genetically superior to others. FAIR leadership and staff members have made headlines for saying things like “It’s almost like [Asians and Hispanics] are getting into competitive breeding” (Dan Stein, President) and “Just because one believes in white separatism, that does not make them a racist” (Joe Turner, Staff).
John Tanton, FAIR’s founder and until recently, one of its board members, was famous for advocating in favor of a “European-American majority, and a clear one at that,” and once defended Nazi-era beliefs in racial superiority in a paper called “The Case for Passive Eugenics.” A 2009 Southern Poverty Law Center report on Tanton network groups said that FAIR “has an ugly record of promoting racist ideas, conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant hatred”, while a 2000 report from the Anti-Defamation League wrote that FAIR used “mean spirited distortions, nativist bias, anti-foreign fear mongering and overt racism” to defend anti-immigrant positions.
Now, it seems that FAIR’s propensity to fudge the numbers and and spin the truth has finally caught up to it.
