The following profiles of anti-immigrant groups demonstrate how and why they have been able to promote extreme views on immigration while presenting themselves as legitimate opponents of immigration. These groups often demonize non-white immigrants with bigoted, stereotyped comments, blame them for a variety of societal ills and ascribe the actions of a small number of immigrants to all immigrants. In addition to influencing policy-makers and government officials, many of these anti-immigrant groups are well-funded and able to get their anti-immigrant message out to large audiences.

Federation for American Immigration Reform

Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is the largest anti-immigrant group in the United States, describing itself as a “public interest organization with a support base comprising nearly 50 private foundations and over 1.9 million diverse members and supporters.”28 FAIR opposes “illegal immigration,” and also favors a steep reduction in legal immigration.29

Despite FAIR’s toehold in the mainstream, its anti-immigration stance is based on a bigoted representation of immigrants. This tone was set by FAIR’s founder and current advisory board member, John Tanton.30 His xenophobia was exposed decades ago, when a series of private memos he sent to FAIR colleagues in 1986 was leaked to the media. In one such memo, Tanton warned of a “Latin onslaught,” and an “explosion” as “[w]hites see their power and control over their lives declining.”31

FAIR has built on Tanton’s xenophobic outlook, demonizing immigrants. Its website alleges a causal relationship between immigration and American societal ills, including crime rates,32 environmental degradation33 and wage stagnation.34

FAIR developed other anti-immigration front groups in order to broaden the demographics of its movement and shield itself from accusations of racism. These groups include Choose Black America (CBA) and You Don’t Speak for Me (YDSFM), which are now defunct, along with its legal wing, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI).35 FAIR also has important connections to extremist groups and individuals. The group “reportedly accepted over $1 million in the 1980s and 1990s from The Pioneer Fund, a foundation that promotes the study of eugenics.”36 Tanton himself has verified the Pioneer Fund as a financial supporter of FAIR without specifying the amount that his organization received.37 Rick Oltman, a former FAIR Field Representative, was reportedly a member of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens.38 FAIR also hosts a number of events designed to unite anti-immigrant thinkers and groups. Since 2006, it has hosted the annual Hold Their Feet to the Fire conference to discuss the “immigration problem.”39

Center for Immigration Studies

John Tanton’s next anti-immigration project came in 1985, when he created the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Initially pitched by Tanton as a “project of FAIR,” CIS now promotes itself as “an independent think tank.”40 CIS’s slogan, “Low immigration, Pro-immigrant,” is a misleading statement meant to obscure its radical outlook. Indeed, the group’s “About” page is explicit about its overarching belief that immigration is to blame for the erosion of American quality of life: “current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage.”41 Literature published by longtime CIS executive director Mark Krikorian cites the need for a permanent reduction in both legal and illegal immigration for the sake of America’s survival.42 Krikorian has consistently painted a dehumanizing picture of immigrants, defining them only by illegal activities, manipulative lies and economic cost. For example, he once tweeted, “How many rapists & drug-dealers are the anti-deportation radicals protecting?”43

CIS staff have also promoted their views in racist publications and on an anti-Semitic radio show. In September 2013, Krikorian, and Don Barnett, a CIS fellow, wrote articles that were featured in The Social Contract, an anti-immigrant publication edited by Wayne Lutton, a white supremacist. Lutton has ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a long-established white supremacist group and the Charles Martel Society, which publishes racist and anti-Semitic works. The articles from the CIS staffers appeared alongside those written by racists with ties to white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups.44 In December 2013, David North, a CIS fellow, appeared on “The Realist Report,” a radio show hosted by the virulent anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, John Friend. The show focused on immigration.45 In April 2014, Jessica Vaughan, CIS’s Director of Policy, granted an interview to a reporter from the anti-Semitic newspaper American Free Press (AFP), founded by the late Holocaust denier Willis Carto.46

Over the years, CIS has continually and energetically promoted the writings of racists. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Center for New Community (CNC) found that CIS’s weekly immigration roundup had circulated over 1,700 articles from the racist, anti-immigrant website VDARE over a ten-year period, averaging the promotion of more than three VDARE articles per week.47 CIS has gone so far as to commission Jason Richwine to write for the organization.48 Richwine is a disgraced researcher who resigned from the Heritage Foundation in May 2013 due to public backlash over his racist 2009 Harvard dissertation in which he asserted that the IQ of immigrants of Latino/a descent is biologically inferior to that of Caucasians.49 Reaction to Richwine’s dissertation was swift and strong, causing the Heritage Foundation to undergo “unaccustomed criticism” for an immigration report co-authored by Richwine that it had released only days prior to Richwine’s resignation.50 The Heritage Foundation report was criticized across the ideological spectrum, including by “conservative groups and lawmakers"51 and by the widely-read conservative website RedState.52 Richwine’s departure from the Heritage Foundation marked an effort by the the conservative think tank to distance itself from extremist rhetoric posing as legitimate academic thought. Yet CIS readily hired Richwine as an “independent public policy analyst,” and began publishing his work as early as January 2016.53

Numbers USA

NumbersUSA was founded in 1996 by Roy Beck with the help of John Tanton. The group’s tagline is “For lower immigration levels,” and it opposes legal and illegal immigration, as well as immigration policies or initiatives like DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and amnesty. Beck had previously worked for years as the Washington editor of The Social Contract (TSC) which has published white supremacists including Jared Taylor and Sam Francis. In 1997, Beck addressed the national conference of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens. In 2009, NumbersUSA produced a video called “Immigration 103 – American Trauma: Jobs and the Economy,” which featured commentary from Roan Garcia-Quintana, who is a board member of Council of Conservative Citizens.54

In March 2016, Beck published a blog on the NumbersUSA website arguing that homegrown terrorists can be stopped with a “dramatic reduction in nearly all forms of immigration.” He wrote that while every nationality that has immigrated to the U.S. brought its own form of organized crime, it’s “the large unassimilated number of a nationality in a foreign land provides space for the bad guys to swim with much less chance of detection.” Beck argued that the only way to end the threat of homegrown terror is to stop the “large flows of new foreign citizens” to the United States.55

The Remembrance Project

The Remembrance Project was founded in 2009 by Maria Espinoza and purports to educate and raise awareness about “the epidemic of killings of Americans by illegal aliens,” a narrative promoted by anti-immigrant groups and activists to create fear and anger around undocumented immigration.

Espinoza has ties to right-wing extremists. She has previously written for The Social Contract, has spoken at The Social Contract Press Writers Workshop and joined the Texas Border Volunteers, an armed vigilante group, for a “night watch” on the Texas/Mexico border.56

The Remembrance Project has been embraced by President Donald Trump since the start of his presidential campaign in 2015. During the election, members of The Remembrance Project could be seen standing alongside then-candidate Trump on stage while he spoke about his proposed strict immigration policies. Some of these families were also featured in Trump presidential campaign ads as a means to garner support for his immigration policies. More recently, President Trump publicly acknowledged The Remembrance Project at a June 2018 press conference with Angel Families (families that have lost relatives to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants).

San Diegans for Secure Borders

San Diegans for Secure Borders (SDSB) is a regionally-focused anti-immigrant group founded in 2012 that advocates for strong U.S.-Mexico border security in the San Diego area, and the country more broadly. The group opposes “illegal” immigration in any form, and also favors a steep reduction in legal immigration.57 Its founder and spokesman Jeff Schwilk was previously the leader of the San Diego Minutemen, a nativist organization that sent out vigilante-style patrols to the border, and harassed “employers who hire Hispanic day laborers as well as the laborers themselves.”58 SDSB also frequently propagates conspiracy theories about a Mexican takeover of America. In one Facebook post, the group cites an article with the caption: “Next Mexican president calls for the full invasion of the U.S. by Mexico. Sounds like a declaration of war against America.”59 SDSB also consistently dehumanizes Hispanic people by posting negative articles that classify them as criminals, rapists and murderers. One such Facebook caption laments: “Lawless Mexifornia where illegal alien rapes are no problemo.”60

The group also labels politicians who vote to pass any conciliatory pro-immigration policies as “America-hating thugs”61 who are committing “treason.”62

In addition to these groups that exclusively focus on immigration, there are groups that have made anti-immigrant sentiment, particularly towards Muslims, a part of their agenda. Many of these groups promote the idea that all Muslims in the U.S. are radicalized and are trying to implement Sharia law in the country.