(AZ Gov.) Brewer returns 'racist' donation

[pinboy3niner]

Gov. Jan Brewer’s office has been combing the list of donors to the SB 1070 defense fund in search of a donation from the White rights group American Third Position. They found one. It was for $100, and it was mailed back today, according to Paul Senseman, spokesman for Brewer.

Senseman says more than 30,200 individual contributions have come in so far, so it is a “slow but deliberate and ongoing search process to check the contributions.”

The governor ordered that any contributions from “known racists or racist organizations be returned,” Senseman explained in an e-mail.

The American Third Position claimed on its website to have made a “triple-digit” donation to the fund the Brewer set up to pay for defending SB 1070 in court. The group said the donation was part of its efforts to support strategies that “stem and reverse the browning of America.”

Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/Blog/Valdez/91315


I can't help being surprised to see that the involvement of racist, white supremacist groups in both writing and supporting the Arizona law does not give others pause in their support of the law. Those who believe that the law is merely a reasonable reaction to inadequate federal policy are overlooking the story of how the law was written, and by whom, and the agenda they seek to advance.

I won't call all supporters of the law racist, nor will I disparage all Arizonans because of their Legislature's adoption of the law. But I will support the boycott, and I consider the racist groups involved in writing and supporting the law fair game.

[pinboy3niner]

1. More info on the writers/backers of the Arizona law:

It's no secret that Kris Kobach helped Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce write the Arizona law. Kobach works for the IRLI (Immigration Reform Law Institute), an arm of FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform).

Here's some background from the Southern Poverty Law Center:


At the center of the Tanton web is the nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most important organization fueling the backlash against immigration. Founded by Tanton in 1979, FAIR has long been marked by anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups. Recently, it has promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico's secret designs on the American Southwest and an alternative theory alleging secret plans to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada. In 2006, a senior FAIR official sought "advice" from the leaders of a racist Belgian political party.

http://www.splcenter.org/publications/the-nativist-lobby-three-faces-of-intolerance/fair-the-action-arm



The Nativists
Profiles of 20 Anti-Immigrant Leaders

.
Kris Kobach, 41
Kansas City, Mo.

The man behind many of the deeply flawed anti-illegal immigrant laws passed recently is Kris Kobach, the "national expert on constitutional law" who works for the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI). IRLI is the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), recently listed as a nativist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At IRLI, Kobach has been a prime mover behind ordinances in Farmer's Branch, Texas, and Hazelton, Pa., among other places, that seek to punish those who aid and abet "illegal aliens."

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2008/spring/the-nativists?page=0,11