It is true that our federal government is not adequately dealing with illegal immigration appropriately. But it is also true that this issue masks another problem. Unfortunately, what we resist persists.

The American Defamation League's recent Klan Report reports a rise in Klan membership and that their newest recruiting tool is anti-immigrant sentiment. Supporters of anti-immigration groups may unknowingly support documented hate groups who are using immigration as a platform to assert some bizarre and extreme conclusions about races of people.

For example, Glenn Spencer, the founder of the anti-immigration group Voice of Citizens Together went so far as to produce a video that he sent to every member of Congress that conveys the message that a Mexican invasion is spreading like "wildfire" "Bringing crime, drugs, squalor and immigration via the birth canal, Mexicans are a cultural cancer from which Western civilization must be rescued. They are threatening the birthright left by the white colonists who earned the right to stewardship of the land. And this invasion is no accident."

Another example is the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, who has been quoted as saying, "Every illegal alien they (ranchers who capture illegal border-crossers at gunpoint) halt is one less that will go on our welfare rolls, overcrowd our schools, bring in more drugs to poison our kids, or rob, rape and murder another innocent American citizen."

Another group, The American Immigration Control Foundation, actually turns the table and accuses the Mexican immigrant population of ethnic cleansing: "America's culture, customs and language are under assault from foreigners who come to live here and, instead of learning the American way of life, choose to impose their own alien cultures, languages, and institutions upon us ... (e)thnic cleansing ... may seem a harsh term to apply here in America, but it accurately describes the expulsion of Americans from their communities by illegal aliens."

Locally, anti-immigration groups such as the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform have on their board former Gov. Dick Lamm, who has been outspoken about his opinion of the Mexican culture through publication of his eight steps to destroy America. "We could make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort." was step No. 3 in the list to destroy America.

And just as recently, the Northern Colorado Immigration Reduction group, was leafleting at the 2006 Sustainable Living Fair hate-based literature through the crowds. Both CAIR and NCIR have links to organizations that have been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups. Not only do these groups foster hate and fear in their language, they engage in tactics which terrorize the victims of their hate.

Unfortunately, these groups are not really seeking a workable positive solution to a dysfunctional immigration system. Remember, racism is defined as a hatred or intolerance of another race.

Scapegoating and hateful language dehumanize the persons of whom they speak. It is dehumanization that allows us to do horrible things to other human beings. It permitted the Holocaust and lynching. It encourages hate crimes. Dehumanization is what allows us to brutally round up over a thousand immigrants two weeks before the holiday, leaving hundreds of children without parents and destroying families and communities.

If you are seeking a solution to the immigration problems this country faces, then exert pressure on our federal government for humane comprehensive immigration reform and be pro-labor rights, pro-fair wages, pro-environmental sustainability not only for our local area, but for our planet as well, and stay away from the negativity and hate that anti-immigration groups are wanting you to support.
 

originally published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan