Is FAIR fair?

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Yesterday, the public affairs program Weekday on KUOW FM had an interesting – and at times heated – discussion about access to health care for undocumented immigrants. There are already substantial barriers to getting decent health care in this country, the primary one being cost. But if you’re undocumented, the cost burden is often accompanied by fear of being asked your status. And despite the huge opportunity offered by the health care overhaul to actually insure the uninsured and increase the pool of those paying into the exchange, undocumented immigrants were purposely – and shamefully – left out.

Thanks to health service providers such as International Community Health Services, sick people can receive care despite the documents they have or don’t have. 

As part of the program, OneAmerica Executive Director Pramila Jayapal debated Ira Mehlman, Media Director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), on the merits of providing health care to the undocumented, as well as broader immigration reform efforts. We welcome disagreement and debate. There’s more than one way to solve our broken immigration system after all. But it’s disturbing that FAIR is asked by mainstream media and Congress to comment on the immigration debate as a credible voice, given a fringe agenda that is far outside the mainstream and a perspective that runs contrary to a history in this country of immigrant contribution and integration.

It’s no surprise, for example, that FAIR blames undocumented immigrants for driving up health care costs—the organization, and others it supports, blame immigrants for just about all our nation’s ills, including poverty, urban sprawl, disease, crime, and environmental degradation. Even traffic.

Jane Mayer wrote an explosive profile in last week’s New Yorker about the Koch brothers, billionaires who have been quietly funding right-wing groups for over a generation, creating a network of think tanks, non-profits, and “citizen groups” to push the libertarian dogma of low taxes, nominal services for the poor, and laissez-faire environmentalism into the mainstream. FAIR may not have a billionaire sugar daddy paying the bills, but they, too, have developed a network of anti-immigration front groups with the aim of mainstreaming ideas such as zero immigration and stirring up nativist backlashes at opportune moments, like when major immigration reform bills are before Congress.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, has FAIR on its list of hate groups based on writings by its founder John Tanton (such as “The Case for Passive Eugenics”), participation with white nationalist groups, and major funding its received from the Pioneer Fund, a racist organization. The Law Center has done research exposing the other groups in the Tanton network:

The vast majority of these groups were founded or funded by John Tanton, a major architect of the contemporary nativist movement who, 20 years ago, was already warning of a destructive "Latin onslaught" heading to the United States.

Who is part of the Tanton Network?

• FAIR, whose Executive Director Dan Stein has said "it's almost like [Asians and Hispanics] are getting into competitive breeding" (for more revealing quotes, see here)
• The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is the legal arm of FAIR—they drafted SB1070 and most of the copycat bills
• The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an "independent" think tank stacked with academics that publish reports, including one on unemployment released this week that “perpetuates the economically flawed argument that every job held by an immigrant is a job lost by a native-born worker,” according to the Immigration Policy Center 
• NumbersUSA is a grassrootsf advocacy organization
• Numerous faux organizations such as Progressives for Immigration Reform who masquerade as environmental groups, but want to convince you that immigrants and migrants are to blame for pollution and our oil dependency, etc.

Check out for Center for New Community’s impressive chart for a more comprehensive look at how these numerous groups are interconnected. America’s Voice and Imagine2050 have done impressive research and produced videos on the Tanton Network as well.

These groups are well-funded and have developed a polished sheen to their public image. Yet, according to Henry Fernandez of the Center for American Progress:

the sad fact is that attempts to reform our immigration system are being sabotaged by organizations fueled by hate. Many anti-immigrant leaders have backgrounds that should disqualify them from even participating in mainstream debate, yet the American press quotes them without ever noting their bizarre and often racist beliefs.

It’s past time to highlight the worst offenders.