Turns out old dogs don't learn new tricks, they just replay the old ones, in new(ish) ways.
As is the case with Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), an "organization" posing as an environmental group trying to convince young hipsters that to reduce America's carbon footprint, America needs to restrict its immigration.
It is connected to John Tanton, widely recognized as the godfather of anti-immigration movement.
As Mother Jones reports.
The argument isn’t new: John Tanton...kicked off his efforts in the 1970s by presenting himself as an environmental conservationist who was “concerned about what an unstemmed tide of refugees will do to the nation's resources.” Tanton helped launch a network of anti-immigration organizations that are now the core of the movement, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).And the American Prospect drills down even further on Tanton's work.
According to the Center for New Community, which monitors the white nationalist movement, Tanton has fostered over a dozen groups that work to reduce immigration. Six of these organizations, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), have been cataloged as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but Tanton doesn't seem bothered by his critics. He even framed a copy of the center's 2002 investigation of him (titled "The Puppeteer") and hung it in his office.PFIR has tried to downplay its ties to Tanton -- I guess to lend itself a speck of credibility -- but the head of the group is a former lawyer for FAIR, just one of many connections explored in the American Prospect piece.
Both stories explore why PFIR is having a hard time gaining traction.
The environmental argument for immigration controls failed to gain much traction the first time: the links between overpopulation and immigration were tenuous, and anti-immigrant activists found they got farther by presenting immigration as "an affront on American culture [that] contributes to rising crime rates, and steals jobs from American workers," according to the American Prospect....Adam Werack, the president of the Sierra Club in 1998, explains why the argument just doesn't work.
And PFIR activists are facing the same hard sell this time around, as environmentalists have accused them of finding a convenient scapegoat for environmental hazards when immigrants actually tend to consume and drive less than the average American citizen.
Immigration control is a foolish way to create an environmental perspective. It attacks people who are suffering, it allows people who are rich to be unaccountable, it's out of touch with the realities of changing demographics, and it's terrifically unpopular.According to Rachel Maddow, for years FAIR was supported by a dubious funding source.
The Pioneer Fund describes itself as based "in the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition and eugenics movement." For the last 70 years, the Pioneer Fund has funded controversial research about race and intelligence, essentially aimed at proving the racial superiority of white people. The group's original mandate was to promote the genes of those "deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution."And, for the cherry on top, FAIR claims credit for drafting Arizona's anti-immigrant law.
What more can you ask for from a tired, racist, front group?
