Chicago Hispanic Newspaper, Lawndale News, Hispanic Bilingual Newspapers, Su Noticiero Bilingue

By: Daniel Nardini

Last week I came across the magazine The New American put out by the John Birch Society. It was a well organized periodical printed on high quality paper. Working for a newspaper, I can judge that this organization has money. The magazine and its layout are truly impressive. They clearly have top quality people doing the magazine layout and distribution. And judging from the articles the magazine also clearly has a lot of writers working for it. While I found the magazine impressive, the contents of it alarmed me.

I must first say something about the John Birch Society. Founded in 1958, it is an extreme right-wing anti-communist organization. It has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “patriot group” that promotes anti-government conspiracy theories. From what I also saw of some of the articles the John Birch Society is also anti-immigrant. A number of the articles in the issue I saw talked about how “illegal immigrants” were “draining” the state economies and the national economy with their “U.S.-born children.” The articles also talked about how “illegals” received “government services” and the “government was looking the other way.”

All of this of course is bogus nonsense. Undocumented cannot receive any government services, and we must keep in mind that undocumented still pay taxes. I also saw photos with captions “illegals draining our health care system” and “illegals protesting against border enforcement.” All of the photos showed Latino-looking or Asian-looking people. I saw no photos of white European peoples with the same labels. The contents of the articles and photos were quite clear enough—the whole thing is to smear immigrants from Latin America and Asia and also smear their U.S.-born children.

Apparently the undocumented from Europe are acceptable, or no immigrants at all is just as easily acceptable. The articles commonly quote the organization FAIR (Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform). FAIR has been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-immigrant organization with ties or membership who come from Ku Klux Klan or neo-nazi organizations. After going through all of the articles, the only “Americans” who seem to be acceptable are those of white European descent. One article I read in The New American described the undocumented coming from Latin America and Asia as “enemy aliens.” This term has not been used since World War II, but it seems to aptly sum up how the John Birch Society sees immigrants from Latin America and Asia and their children—whether legal or not.

The John Birch Society was founded originally as an extremist anti-communist organization in the 1950’s—a period known for extreme paranoia. To make itself relevant for the 21st Century, they have joined newly formed “patriot” groups and far-right organizations as well as racist and anti-government groups that have proliferated in the last half of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century. The John Birch Society has reinvented itself for the growing political darkness that surrounds us today.

By: Daniel Nardini

At this point Arizona is the only state that has passed anti-immigrant legislation aimed at not only the undocumented but also at Latinos. A number of other states—with Republican majorities—have tried to do the same thing. So far such attempts have failed. More moderate voices realize that if they do the same their state will be subject to tourist boycotts, federal court lawsuits, and extremely bad publicity. This does not mean that more extremist politicians will stop. As I write this, an attempt is being made to pass anti-immigrant legislation in the Alabama state legislature.

House Bill (HB) 56, just recently passed by the Alabama House of Representatives, will require local and state police to check on the immigration status of all suspects stopped in traffic violations as well as for major crimes. It will also require employers to use the E-Verify system put out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Further, anyone who “knowingly” provides “shelter” for an undocumented person will face prison. This is aimed at landlords who provide rental housing for undocumented, or families with undocumented family members. This legislation is now before the Alabama State Senate.

To put it mildly the Latino community in Alabama is alarmed by this legislation. They know who it is aimed against, and they know that such legislation will racially profile Latinos. This has happened in Arizona, and Latinos know that this legislation is being used to scare Latinos to leave Alabama. The legislation has three goals. First, it will attack the most vulnerable people—the undocumented and Latinos. Second, the legislation will be part of a “state solidarity” with Arizona in attacking the federal government. This second point is important. The more states that do exactly what Arizona did the greater that the sheer weight of such change will influence the federal government itself. Finally, these extremists will force a change in federal immigration policy to be even more strict and extremist as well as force a change in the U.S. Constitution.

Alabama is not the only state where such extreme legislation is passing muster. Georgia and South Carolina’s house of representatives have also passed similar Arizona-style legislation. If these three states do succeed in passing legislation like Arizona’s, this will indeed complicate the federal government’s court case against Arizona. But then this is the intent—to weaken U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Arizona. The extremists realize that if they cannot successfully fight on the federal level then they will take it through the states. And the more states they can win the stronger their case to make sure every state has state immigration laws in contradiction of federal law to complicate the fight against the federal government. This is why it is important to fight the extremists tooth and nail in the states as well as on the federal level. The whole thing is becoming one very mean-spirited and dirty game of chess.