A national anti-illegal-immigration group has pulled out of a planned June 5 rally in Phoenix to support Arizona's immigration law because of a key organizer's alleged links to neo-Nazis.

The website for the "Phoenix Rising" Arizona Rally and Freedom March event scheduled for Wesley Bolin Plaza lists as "confirmed" speakers former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, state Sen. and Senate Bill 1070 sponsor Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, and GOP Senate challenger J.D. Hayworth, although a spokesman said Hayworth won't be participating.

The rally intends to show support for the statute, Gov. Jan Brewer and other Arizona lawmakers who supported the legislation. The law makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person's legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

As of late Friday, the event's Facebook page had 3,688 members.

But William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, or ALIPAC, is distancing his group from event organizer Daniel Smeriglio of Hazleton, Pa., over Facebook connections to White supremacists and a European neo-Nazi musical act.

"We have worked diligently behind the scenes to try to resolve this situation with the knowledge that our political opposition does have strong evidence of neo-Nazi supporters being involved with the event still going forward on the 5th," ALIPAC said Thursday in a written statement. "We feel it is completely unacceptable that Dan Smeriglio and Tom Tancredo or anyone else would put the brave activists, lawmakers, candidates, and citizens of Arizona at risk by proceeding with an event that our opponents can use to harm our cause of stopping and reversing illegal immigration."

Smeriglio, whose group is called Voice of The People USA, could not be reached for comment but defended himself in a lengthy written statement on his website. He strenuously denied being a racist.

"Out of the 2,200 friends on my Facebook page, two apparently had or have some association with groups that do NOT represent my beliefs, particularly regarding illegal immigration," Smeriglio wrote. "When this was brought to my attention I immediately removed and blocked the two individuals in question, because I stand against illegal immigration with no hatred in my heart for any person, race or religion."

Smeriglio said he never listened to the lyrics of Saga, a White nationalist singer from Sweden.

"I do not have the ability to do a background check on every person or band out of thousands that I come into contact with on Facebook," he said. "To link me with this band is absurd and was done with malicious intent."

Tancredo, who while in Congress was perhaps Capitol Hill's best-known border hard-liner, also defended Smeriglio on the Phoenix rally's website.

"The allegations against one of the rally's organizers, Daniel Smeriglio, have been examined and are not only without merit, they are the worst kind of character assassination that no decent person in politics, left, right or center, should condone," Tancredo said in the statement.

Mark Sanders, a spokesman for Hayworth, on Friday said Hayworth won't be appearing at the Phoenix rally. Hayworth, a former Arizona congressman, is running against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the Aug. 24 GOP primary and has been endorsed by ALIPAC.

"We have a conflict," Sanders said.

On Friday, Gheen said he wasn't interested in talking further about the June 5 rally, saying that ALIPAC activists are putting their emphasis on spreading Arizona's immigration law to other states.