Beyond FAIR

In this special report the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) delineates the intersection of two trends. One is a measureable drop in the number of local and national anti-immigrant organizations that were established prior to the presidency of Barack Obama. Along the same lines, those organizations which remained experienced a noticeable decrease in the size of their membership and financial support.

[caption id="attachment_332" align="alignright"]Download a printable version of the Beyond FAIR reportBeyond FAIR: The Decline of the Established Anti-Immigrant Organizations and the Rise of Tea Party Nativism[/caption]

 This has led to a relative decline in what IREHR describes as the Nativist Establishment. It should be noted that IREHR is not arguing that these organizations have disappeared altogether. Neither does IREHR contend that such organizations have ceased to be a danger to human rights. Rather, the data suggests that their size and power have fallen relative to the strength they had achieved at their height during the period 2007-2008.

The second trend is a rise in anti-immigrant activism by the Tea Parties. As IREHR reported in its 2010 special report, Tea Party Nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment and activism have been part of the Tea Party mix from the beginning. Indeed, we noted then that one of the six national factions, 1776 Tea Party, had imported its staff leadership directly from the Minutemen. In Beyond FAIR, however, we note both an increase in anti-immigrant activism by national and local Tea Party groups, as well as a measurable number of anti-immigrant leaders who have joined the Tea Parties and consequently accelerated the rate of anti-immigrant activism by those Tea Parties.

To a noticeable degree, the transfer of organizational allegiances to the Tea Parties noted in trend two is caused by the drop in strength by established anti-immigrant organizations described in trend one.

This re-articulation of the Nativist Establishment into the Tea Parties changes both the shape and strength of the anti-immigrant impulse in American life. Mixed into the activities of multi-issue organizations (the Tea Parties), it will be harder to delineate and counter by immigrant rights advocates. Further, the Tea Party movement by itself is larger and more significant than the Nativist Establishment ever was, even at its height. As a result, anti-immigrant activism has a bigger immediate constituency and is likely to be stronger.

Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind January 17, 2012February 22nd, 2019

Conclusion

Over the next decade, the United States of America will continue to grapple with immigration-related issues. The United States Supreme Court will likely decide a number of immigration-related cases with a direct tie to constitutional issues. If current trends continue, IREHR does not think it inconceivable that the court will hear arguments on birthright citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment. Voting rights cases are likely to proliferate, and many of the civil rights that were so recently won will continue to be tested.

In the meantime, our state legislatures and congress will decide whether or not to continue to tear apart families with undocumented parents and citizen children. They will decide whether or not these children will have access to the same educational opportunities as their neighbors, whether or not they will receive appropriate health care, and whether or not they will view law enforcement officers as keepers of the public peace or as imminent dangers to their family’s well-being. And all Americans will have to decide whether or not they will challenge a mean, sometimes brutal, anti-democratic nativist social movement by their fellow Americans.

The newly configured anti-immigrant movement described in this report has developed a new activist constituency, the Tea Parties, even while it has lost some of its established funding sources and membership. Human rights and immigrant advocates now face a civic opposition which has a larger constituency, and an opposition which is harder to delineate and thus more difficult to oppose.

This anti-immigrant movement matters to each and every American, whether your forebears trekked over the Siberian-Alaskan land bridge 20,000 years ago, whether they came here three hundred years ago in chains, whether they were annexed by war and Manifest Destiny, or they came here one hundred years ago or more in search of religious freedom and economic opportunity, or just last year. The strength of the anti-immigrant movement, its size, shape and constituent elements should be of concern to all. The fate of the United States of America and its unique promise is at stake.

Appendix A: Nativist Leaders Involved in Tea Party Activity.

Appendix B: Nativist Establishment Financial Data 2001-2010.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

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