Representative Martina White (R-Philadelphia) joined forces with reps. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) and Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) on March 23 to "offer solutions to shutdown Pennsylvania's illegal alien invasion" by introducing HB 1885 in the Pennsylvania state legislature. The trio of neo-knownothing legislators divvied up the press conference to deal with their pet projects: Metcalfe to push the institution of E-Verify throughout the state; Heffley to push the SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification of Entitlement) program; and White to establish legal and economic sanctions against any Pennsylvania municipality that offers protections from warrantless ICE holds to undocumented immigrants (which she characterizes as "sanctuary cities").

Metcalfe is well known for proposing anti-immigrant legislation in the state — from trying to rescind 14th Amendment "birthright" citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants to unwieldy (and unsuccessful) "National Security Begins at Home" omnibus immigration bills — but is perhaps best remembered by Philadelphians as the legislator who switched off Rep. Leslie Acosta's mic to silence her opposition to an English-only bill he was proposing.

But he's Butler County's headache, not ours.

Our very Philly headache is Rep. Martina White, who tried this morning to bolster and support her anti-sanctuary city legislation with "facts" from a hate group. FAIR (The Federation for American Immigration Reform) is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-immigration lobbyists, and as a hate group since 2008 "because of its virulent and false attacks on non-white immigrants." Moreover, SPLC points to the organization's ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists in making the hate group classification.

SPLC isn't the only group making claims about FAIR's anti-immigrant distortions. In 2007, America's Voice went as far as taking out newspaper ads urging Congress not to meet “with extremist groups like FAIR," and the Anti-Defamation League has called the organization reckless, using tactics and language that "cloud and inhibit" real debate.

"FAIR’s activities in support of immigration control have been characterized by some political observers as promoting nativism and xenophobia, and critics have accused FAIR of using racial innuendo to promote its message," states the ADL's "Is FAIR Unfair?" report. "Other critics have accused FAIR of being anti-Hispanic and anti-Catholic, based on the comments of some of the group’s leaders. Such charges have been rejected by FAIR. [But] FAIR opened itself to such criticism with unretracted offensive statements by several FAIR leaders, and by its willing acceptance of financial support from the Pioneer Fund, a controversial foundation with a tainted history that was established to promote the discredited 'science' of eugenics, and that continues to financially support questionable research into the comparative intelligence of ethnic minorities." 

FAIR is one of three thinly veiled anti-immigrant organizations (Numbers USA and Center for Immigration Studies are the others) established by Dr. John Tanton, who the New York Times reported in 2011, "set off a storm of protests two decades ago with a memorandum filled with dark warnings about the 'Latin onslaught.' Word soon followed that FAIR was taking money from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation that promoted theories of the genetic superiority of whites."

So ... what does it say when a state representative from a majority minority city chooses to shore up her misguided proposed legislation with the intellectually bankrupt, racist, anti-Latino and anti-immigrant "facts" offered by someone like Tanton — or by one of the hate groups his bigotry spawned?  

 

 

 

 

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