bapifar01: Anti-immigrant nativists show their true colors

Monday 26 September 2011

Anti-immigrant nativists show their true colors

Scary brown people rally in Washington D.C. (Ryan Beiler/Dreamstime.com)

For years, anti-immigrant groups have claimed that their concern was over lawbreaking "illegal" immigrants. It was a matter of "fairness," they claimed! Why couldn't they get in line like every other legal immigrant?

But they've stopped pretending.

NumbersUSA announced that they will air television ads during the next GOP presidential candidate debate that advocate further restrictions on the level of documented (so called "legal") immigrants. As IREHR recently noted, some national nativist groups appear to be changing course, and preparing to launch a campaign to restrict documented immigration. If this shift in nativist strategy fully materializes, it is likely to alter the terms of discussion by policymakers and the public [...]
The NumbersUSA move follows the ads run by an allied group, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), which launched a new television ad during the September 7 CNN Republican presidential debate. Like the NumbersUSA ad, the CAPS spot called for further restricting documented immigration into the country because of high unemployment.

Given their roots in the white supremacist movement (click on the link above for more info), it's not surprising that their hatred extends to all brown people, and not just those who are in the country without proper documentation. Indeed, this is the same mentality shared by Pat Buchanan, who includes chapters such as this one:

--Chapter 4, ?The End of White America?: ?A rebellion is under way in America: a radicalization of the working and middle class, such as occurred in the Truman-McCarthy era, during the George Wallace campaigns, and in the anti-amnesty firestorm that killed the Bush-Kennedy-McCain push for a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. What all these movements had in common was populist rage against a reigning establishment. ? Why the alienation of Middle America? ? They sense that they are losing their country. And they are right.?

This crowd feels they are "losing their country" because brown people are moving in next door. They don't care whether those individuals are here legally or otherwise, they just care that those people don't have white skin.

This is reminiscent of "pro-life" groups now trying to restrict access to contraceptives. They claimed for years that they just cared about the "unborn," but their new focus on contraception exposes their true motivation?their deep hatred for sex, thus their desire to punish any woman who has sex for non-procreation purposes (to them, "sluts").

As for these nativist anti-immigration groups, theirs is a deeply racist, deeply xenophobic outlook. But after pretending for years that their efforts were about the "rule of law," it's refreshing that their true colors are finally showing through. It was only a matter of time.