While FAIR presents itself as an organization against illegal immigration — not immigration overall — its undeniable relationship with white nationalists tells a different story.



Jonathan Hanen

FAIR was founded in 1979 by white nationalist and retired optometrist John Tanton, who has openly expressed opposition to non-white immigration. “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that,” he wrote in a letter to now-deceased eugenicist and ecology professor Garrett Hardin in 1993. Tanton has also suggested that a person’s intelligence should pre-determine who should and should not have children.

A member of FAIR’s national board of advisors, Tanton's preoccupation with immigration appears to be based, at least in part, on race.

In a March 3, 1993 memo to FAIR national board of advisors member Otis Graham, he demonstrated his desire to limit the number of non-whites living in the United States. The memo concerned a new group Tanton wanted to start, which he would have named the League for European American Defense, Education, and Research. Tanton hatched the idea with help from three prominent white nationalists: The Council of Conservative Citizens' Sam Francis, American Renaissance's Jared Taylor and Wayne Lutton, who edits Tanton's white nationalist quarterly journal The Social Contract.

FAIR’s current president Dan Stein is not without his own questionable baggage. In 1994, Stein expressed his disgust for the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, proclaiming that those who supported the 1965 reform wanted to "retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance" and that this "revengism" against whites had created a policy that is causing "chaos and will continue to create chaos."

In 1991 Stein sent a report to FAIR's board of directors under the subject line "The Defenders of American culture Rise to the Call to Arms,” in which he celebrated a new "disdain" in the media and among intellectuals for "the political agenda of those who openly attack the contributions of Western Civilization." He was particularly happy that "multicultural and Politically Correct" school curricula had come under criticism.

FAIR’s public statements in more recent years show the organization remains true to the white nationalist principles on which it was founded. In late December 2015, Stein told supporters in a video message that without a moratorium on immigration, “We’re going to lose everything about what it means to be an American.”

Hanen himself has made his rounds within the Tanton network as well. Prior to joining FAIR, he was the website and social media manager for Pro-English, an anti-immigrant outfit founded by Tanton in 1983.

This is not the first time county Republican clubs have opened their doors to a designated hate group. FAIR’s field representatives have tirelessly propagated its hardcore anti-immigrant stance in communities across the country.

FAIR representative Joyce Mucci was invited to be a “guest speaker” at the Bryan County Republican Party’s “membership drive and pre-convention” meeting in Savannah, Georgia in February 2016. FAIR also works with and has listed several local anti-immigrant groups, including the Texans for FAIR Immigration and the Oregonians for Immigration Reform, as the organization’s “state contacts.”

At a time when President Trump’s fierce anti-immigrant executive orders have attacked immigrant communities, it's alarming to see local republican parties opening their doors to a designated hate group.