SPLC on AZ's New Anti-Hispanic Law
Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant law was written by a lawyer at the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007. The law, a recipe for racial profiling, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. (See statement by SPLC Legal Director Mary Bauer.)
Kris Kobach, the author of the Arizona law and a lawyer at FAIR’s Immigration Reform Law Institute, has been the prime mover behind numerous ordinances that seek to punish those who aid and abet “illegal aliens,” including laws adopted in Farmer’s Branch, Texas, and Hazelton, Pa.
The laws have not done well and have cost some localities immense sums of money to defend. Recently, the city of Albertville, Ala., refused to work with Kobach on just such an ordinance, reportedly because of the high legal costs incurred by these other communities.
Before joining FAIR, Kobach served as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s top immigration adviser. He then moved on to take charge of Department of Justice efforts to tighten border security after the 9/11 attacks. There, he developed a program — the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System — that called for close monitoring of men from Arab and Muslim nations, even legal U.S. residents. The program collapsed due to complaints of racial profiling and discrimination.
[excerpt from "Hate Group Lawyer Drafted Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law", Southern Poverty Law Center, 28 April 2010.]
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To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Friday, 30 April 2010 at 01.27
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I continue to be amazed how, at every turn and juncture, the radical right facilitates its most proactive bigots, cranks and nutballs with training, forums, schools, conferences, etc., at which they get to expound in their best "qualified expert" personas, building their credentials and name recognition, raking in money, making valuable contacts. Kobach gets a job with Ashcroft, it figures. After developing a failure of a program there, or at least after the Bush reign of error has run its checkered course, Kobach is out looking for a job. Lo and behold, there is FAIR’s Immigration Reform Law Institute. It and Kobach are made for each other.
I don't think there's anything quite like this broad range of made-to-order slots for various kinds of activists on the left. Maybe they exist and I just don't know about them, but in my reading they sure don't show up the way the ones on the right do. And, I'll bet the ones that do exist on the left don't pay nearly as well.
on Wednesday, 5 May 2010 at 10.46
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I think, SW, that liberals operate fundamentally differently from conservatives because we have quite different priorities about listening to ideas, pondering alternatives, and including as many voices as possible. Conservatives have different objectives and priorities, to put it charitably, and seem inclined to favor most any "-ocracy" other than "democracy".