Some Anti-Immigrant Activists Have Known Connections with Racist Hate Groups

Interview with Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, conducted by Scott Harris

In a series of giant protests demanding fair treatment and legalization, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters marched in more than 130 cities around the U.S. on April 10. A few days earlier, Dallas, saw more than half a million people come out for one of the largest protests in Texas history.

The unprecedented demonstrations, that many observers believe proclaimed the birth of a new civil rights movement, were triggered by provisions in legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives that will make undocumented immigrants and those who assist them felons. Negotiations over other more moderate measures being considered in the Senate made little progress, but will be taken up again when Congress reconvenes after the Easter recess.

Although 63 percent of Americans surveyed in a recent Washington Post-ABC poll reject new laws that would criminalize undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., members of groups like the Minutemen, have been accused of acting as vigilantes and stirring up racism and xenophobia around the immigration issue. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, who discusses known connections between anti-immigrant activists and extreme right wing and racist groups.

Contact the Southern Poverty Law Center at (334) 956-8303 or visit their intelligence project website at www.intelligencereport.org and www.splcenter.org.

Related links:

* "Felony Threat Rouses Immigrants," by Gail Russell Chaddock The Christian Science Monitor, April 12, 2006

* "Huge Crowds March for Immigration Rights," The Associated Press, April 11, 2006

* "Crackdowns Smack of Racism," Daily Press, April 11, 2006

* "Immigrants in the U.S. Take to the Streets to Demand Equality," Between The Lines, Week ending 4/17/06

* People for the American Way at www.pfaw.org

* The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at www.nnirr.org

* Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras at www.coalitionforjustice.net

* Mexican Labor News and Analysis at www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php

* Jobs With Justice www.jwj.org/corepage.htm

* United Farm Workers www.ufw.org

* AFL-CIO Home Page www.aflcio.org

* Change to Win Labor Coalition www.calaborfed.org

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