The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a non profit, anti-immigration organization in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The group publishes position papers, organizes events, and runs campaigns in order to advocate for changes in U.S. immigration policy. The

Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...

classifies FAIR as a hate group with ties to white supremacist groups. FAIR was founded in 1979 by Michigan surgeon and

white nationalist White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...

John Tanton John Hamilton Tanton (February 23, 1934 – July 16, 2019) was an American ophthalmologist, white nationalist and anti-immigration activist. He was the founder and first chairman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-im ...

. Other co-founders include Otis Graham and former

Gulf Oil Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...

CEO, Sydney Swensrud. It is currently headquartered in Washington, D.C.

History

The "founder of the modern immigration reform movement"—John Tanton, an ophthalmologist in

Petoskey, Michigan Petoskey ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat and largest city in Emmet County. Part of Northern Michigan, Petoskey is a popular Midwestern resort town, as it sits on the shore of Little Traverse Bay, a bay of La ...

—"saw a threat coming in the soaring rates of immigration" and that the "environment was threatened by overpopulation". Frustrated by the lack of interest of his "liberal colleagues in groups such as

Planned Parenthood The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...

and the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

where he was actively engaged, he helped establish "three major national groups"—FAIR,

Numbers USA NumbersUSA is an anti-immigrationExplaining 'Chain Migration'

and the

Center for Immigration Studies The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank and a SPLC designated hate group. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graha ...

—to fight to reduce egal and illegalimmigration." Tanton—along with

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

professor Otis Graham and former

CEO, Sydney Swensrud—established FAIR in 1979. In 1982 Tanton also established U.S. Inc, a foundation chaired by Tanton with financial support from

Cordelia Scaife May Cordelia Scaife May (September 24, 1928 – January 26, 2005) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area political donor and philanthropist. An heiress to the Mellon-Scaife family fortune, she was one of the wealthiest women in the United States. Her p ...

which would over the years, serve as a funding conduit for FAIR, Numbers USA, the Center for Immigration Studies, and many other groups. FAIR's first executive director was Roger Conner. Other co-founders included Sharon Barnes, Jay Harris and Stewart Mott (of the

Stewart R. Mott Foundation The Stewart R. Mott Foundation (formerly the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust) is a charitable trust founded by Stewart Rawlings Mott in the United States that gives small grants to organizations working in the following areas: * peace, arms co ...

) and William Paddock, dean of

Zamorano The Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School ( es, link=no, Escuela Agrícola Panamericana Zamorano), generally known as ''El Zamorano'' or ''Zamorano'', is a private, coeducational university located in the valley of the Yeguare river, Hond ...

the Pan American School of Agriculture. Dan Stein has been president of FAIR since 1988. In ''American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change'', Brian N. Fry described Tanton as the "leader of the drive to restrict immigration" starting in the mid-1970s. Fry described those who favored maintaining or increasing immigration numbers as "expansionists" and those who sought to reduce them as ""restrictionists." Fry traced "restrictions roots" to a surprising surge in illegal and legal immigration—the "new immigration"—following the 1964 termination of the Bracero Program and the enactment of the

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The l ...

. Tanton as President of

Zero Population Growth Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG, is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines; that is, the number of births plus in-migrants equals the number of deaths ...

from 1975 to 1977 attempted to get members to "support immigration restrictions." When they were unwilling, he launched FAIR with seed money in 1979. Throughout the 1980s FAIR's lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill met with more success as did their direct mail campaigns. FAIR received funds from donors such as

(1928–2005) through her

Laurel Foundation Laurel Foundation is a private foundation based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It was established in 1951 by the late Cordelia Scaife May Cordelia Scaife May (September 24, 1928 – January 26, 2005) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area ...

(1928–2005) and the

Pioneer Fund Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences". The organization has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature. One of its first projects w ...

which contributed $1.2 million to FAIR in the 1980s and early 1990s. Following negative publicity about FAIR receiving funds from

when they were revealed in a ''Los Angeles Times'' article, FAIR stopped "receiving grants" from Pioneer that required "public disclosure." The SPLC claimed FAIR continued to "receive private financial support from Pioneer's leaders for several years." Tanton had wanted FAIR to focus on issues related to Hispanics in the United States, such as "cultural division" and bilingualism. He was unable to convince FAIR's board of directors to shift their focus. However, FAIR helped Tanton establish

U.S. English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

as the umbrella organization for "projects pertaining to overpopulation, immigration, and the environment." Through the work of Senator

Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa (July 18, 1906 – February 27, 1992) was a Canadian-born American academic and politician of Japanese ancestry. A professor of English, he served as president of San Francisco State University and then as U.S. Senator fro ...

(R-CA) (1906–1992) and Tanton, U.S. English became a well-organized and well-funded official movement resulting in twenty-two states enacting official language laws to protect English between 1981–97. From 2007–15, Julie Kirchner was FAIR's executive director. In 1991 historian

Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. H ...

explained the rise of FAIR, US English and English first in the United States in the 1980s as part of a larger political phenomenon of

xenophobia Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...

that "feeds on hostility towards the new mass migrations". He quoted a Czech historian, "Where old social relations become unstable, amid the rise of general insecurity, belonging to a common language and culture may become the only certainty in society, the only value beyond ambiguity and doubt." Hobswan was citing another author In 1994, FAIR supported

California Proposition 187 California Proposition 187 (also known as the ''Save Our State'' (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public ed ...

. In 2004, the Federation for American Immigration Reform cooperated with the group called

Protect Arizona Now Proposition 200, the "Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act", was an Arizona state initiative passed in 2004 that basically requires: (a) persons to provide Citizenship in the United States, proof of citizenship to register to vote; (b) vote ...

in order to support the passage of Proposition 200, which shares similarities with California's Proposition 187 as to which

undocumented immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...

are restricted from public benefits and voting because they are most likely unable to provide the required proof of citizenship. It also made the crime of a public official not reporting illegal status a class 2 misdemeanor. In 2007, FAIR successfully campaign against Bush's proposed

Immigration Reform Immigration reform is change to the current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, ''reform'' means "to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses". In the political sense, "immigration ...

which represented "a systemic overhaul including a path to citizenship for most illegal immigrants." "FAIR rallied talk show hosts...The Center for Immigration Studies published "studies of the bill's perceived flaws" and "Numbers USA jammed the Capitol's phones." FAIR had become the "most important organization n the United Statesfueling the backlash against immigration" and Tanton was perceived as the leader. As a result, liberal groups who opposed FAIR focused on Tanton who was at that time "in his 32nd year on the board." Tanton was concerned that US birthrates had dropped "below replacement level." In 1986 Tanton wrote memos to FAIR colleagues—which became known as the WITAN memos—predicting a "Latin onslaught" and worried that high Latino birth rates and low US birthrates would lead "the present majority to hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile". He was concerned Latinos would "bring with them the tradition of the ''mordida'' bribe' the lack of involvement in public affairs." He asked, "What are the differences in educability between Hispanics (with their 50% dropout rate) and Asiatics (with their excellent school records and long tradition of scholarship)?" The memos—which became known as the WITAN memos—were leaked to the press in 1988. He warned that unless Latino immigration was restricted it would ultimately "lead to linguistic, economic, racial and religious "apartheid" in the United States." He cautioned, "I've come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that." When the WITAN memos were leaked to the press in 1988, Tanton eventually had to resign from U.S. English. although he denied the accusations. FAIR has created several affiliated groups, including the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) and the FAIR Congressional Task Force (FCTF) as a

501(c)(4) A 501(c) organization is a nonprofit organization in the Law of the United States#Federal law, federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)) and is one of over 29 types of nonprofit organizations exe ...

. url has security warning The

(CIS) was spun off from FAIR in 1985. FAIR has held an annual "''Hold Their Feet to the Fire''" (F2F) event since 2007 in Washington, D.C. In 2008, Lou Dobbs, a regular (F2F) attendee, broadcast on live television from the event's rally, commended FAIR. He was fired from CNN in 2009 and hired at Fox the next year, to run a similar show. In September 2009 two divisive issues—immigration and health care—became "politically linked" when partisan health reform opponents challenged what they perceived as subsidized health care for illegal immigrants. By early September the bipartisan

Gang of Six In the politics of the United States, the Gang of Six refers to one of three bipartisan groups of six Senators consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans. One group, active in 2009, focused on health care reform in the United States du ...

negotiations on a compromise for the

health care reform Health care reform is for the most part governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to: * Broaden the population that receives health care coverage through either public sector insur ...

bill, had fallen apart. Senators who had previously "embraced the framework" were convinced by Senate Republican Leader

Mitch McConnell Addison Mitchell McConnell III (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky and the Senate minority leader since 2021. Currently in his seventh term, McConne ...

that they were being politically unwise. Their rhetoric turned "shrill" and "anti-reform" with one Senator talking about "death panels that would kill grandma." The furor on immigration "escalated" into what ''The Washington Post'' called a "proxy war." FAIR's annual "Hold their Feet to the Fire" event" in Washington on September 14 and 15, was described by ''The Post'' as a "Capitol Hill lobbying push..

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

47 conservative radio hosts holding a 'town hall of the airwaves'... ighlightingthe costs of illegal immigration." America's Voice's Director

Frank Sharry Frank Sharry is the founder and executive director of America's Voice, a liberal immigration reform group. Early life He was raised in West Hartford, Connecticut, by an Italian-American mother and an Irish-American father. He graduated from ...

said, "conservative activists" had attempted to "intimidate" Congress by "tapping into a thin but vocal vein of populist anger... We didn't call them out last time, we thought we were in a political debate. Now we realize it's part political debate and... part culture war. These talk-show guys and FAIR, this isn't about immigration policy, as much as they think there are way too many Latinos in this country and they want to get rid of a couple of million of them." The SPLC strongly denounced FAIR and its founder. FAIR president Dan Stein stated in ''The Post'' article that the SPLC had "decided to engage in unsubstantiated, invidious name-calling, smearing millions of people in this movement who simply want to see the law enforced and, frankly, lower levels of immigration" and that "America's Voice and allied groups were 'juvenile mud throwers who seem unprepared to engage in serious public debate'. In a 2011 article in ''The New York Times'', a former aide to President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

Linda Chavez Linda Lou ChavezStated on ''Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'', May 20, 2012, PBS (born June 17, 1947) is an American author, commentator, and radio talk show host. She is also a Fox News analyst, Chairman of the Center for Equal ...

, was cited as saying that 77-year-old Tanton was "the most influential unknown man in America." paywall In a 2011 interview published in ''The New York Times'' and ''The Houston Chronicle'', FAIR's President Dan Stein said, "Is FAIR responsible for everything ohn Tantonsaid in his private correspondence? No, I love John, but he's had no significant control over FAIR for years." By the end of 2016, FAIR's annual budget reached $11.2 million. In May 2017, Julie Kirchner, FAIR's executive director since 2005, was named as ombudsman of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman reporting to the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

. A 2017 FAIR report claimed that undocumented immigrants in the United States cost taxpayers approximately $134.9 billion. This report included the children of undocumented immigrants, even those who were U.S. citizens, in the cost calculation. According to the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

, "the estimate was criticized for making broad generalizations and other major methodological flaws."

Reception

The

(SPLC) currently classifies FAIR as a hate group, citing among other things the organization's anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes, its acceptance of $1.2 million from a racist foundation, the Pioneer Fund, its hiring as key officials men who also joined white supremacist groups, having board members who also write regularly for hate publications, its promotion of racist conspiracy theories, and the white supremacist beliefs of its founder. In 1982, John Tanton wrote "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion." The SPLC issued an intelligence report in 2007, after which they added FAIR to its list of hate groups. FAIR responded to this charge by stating that there is no factual basis for the accusation; that FAIR has compiled a long record of mainstream credibility and respect on immigration issues and has always opposed discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion; and that the accusation is an "act of desperation, resulting from the SPLC's failure to convince the American people of their viewpoint." In August 2018, FAIR's former

press secretary A press secretary or press officer is a senior advisor who provides advice on how to deal with the news media and, using news management techniques, helps their employer to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage. Duti ...

, Joe Gomez, filed a complaint with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights, alleging

racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

xenophobic Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...

, and ableist

harassment Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...

at FAIR. Gomez's Attorney Chris Bell, accused FAIR of misrepresenting the settlement to media outlets by wrongly saying the D.C. Office of Human Rights dismissed the complaint because it had no merit. Instead, the office dismissed the complaint because a settlement was reached, according to Bell. "If they continue to misrepresent the truth, I'm going to set the record straight," Bell said. "There was never an agreement

AIR The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...

could go out and misrepresent the truth."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Federation For American Immigration Reform Anti-immigration politics in the United States Charities based in Washington, D.C. History of immigration to the United States Immigration political advocacy groups in the United States 1979 establishments in the United States Organizations established in 1979 Conservative organizations in the United States

History

Reception

See also

References

External links