Hearts of Darkness: A journey into the nativist lair.

A couple of days ago I received an e-mail from one of my blogmigas about an upcoming press conference hosted by anti-immigration group, The Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), to discuss "the implications of the recent elections and (their) agenda for immigration reform in the 111th Congress."

Figuring that it's always good to know what the opposition is up to, I decided to sign on to the conference call to get a feel for what strategies they were planning for the upcoming congressional session.

Little did I know that listening to the world according to FAIR President, Dan Stein, would be like falling down a rabbit hole where black is white and white is black.

Backed up by media spokesman, Ira Melman, and Executive director, Julie Kirchner, Stein managed in his 45min presentation to rewrite recent history, rehash long-discredited talking points, ignore or misinterpret reams of factual evidence, and flat out fabricate his own alternative reality.

As we've come to expect from far-right ideologues, Stein opened up his presentation with a statement intended to stir up maximum resentment and fear. He spoke at length about the changing political climate due to economic instability and how only strict enforcement and severe limiting of all new immigration would be accepted by the American people.

Against this backdrop of economic uncertainty, he couldn't resist the temptation to blame the nation's entire economic collapse on "illegal aliens" and their allies who managed to force well-meaning bankers into giving them mortgages they had no intention of ever paying:

"We see in areas like the housing crisis, where immigration has played an important role. Organizations worked very hard to encourage Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac to get into financing mortgages for people who had ...didn't even have the right to work in this country.. Didn't even have the right to be in this country ..um.. the same political interests that argue we should allow people to work in this country who lack work authorization...

This effort to push banks to underwriting mortgages that were...uh.. essentially based on faulty financial analysis ..Why do you want to give a mortgage to someone who doesn’t have a lawful income in this country...and yet many of those same people seem to be getting rewarded in this administration with political appointments...so..ah...I don't think the issue is going to go away"

This theory of course has been roundly discredited by both economists and the press.

Even fellow conservatives like UCLA professor Stephen Bainbridge, said that these kind of "ravings ...should be taking place in a padded room in Arkham Asylum not in the public discourse.... the freezing up of the credit markets doesn't have anything to do with either affirmative action or illegal immigration, and people who believe it does are on a par with the conspiracy theorists who think fluoridation is a Chicom plot....."

But more importantly, it's been long rejected by the American public, who know that it was the unmitigated greed and incompetence in both Washington and corporate boardrooms that robbed the public of billions and their financial security.

But the statement did provide insight into Steins twisted worldview, and set the tone for what would be a journey through the FAIR looking glass.

Next, Stein moved on to his interpretation of the election results.

Once again, "contrarian" would be a polite term to describe Stein's take on this past election cycle.

Despite overwhelming evidence that anti-immigrant candidates have had their clocks cleaned in both local and federal elections, he claimed that overwhelmingly, the public supported anti-immigration candidates.

He went on to contradict one of the biggest stories of the election cycle where the unprecedented growth of political power of Latino voters and a huge shift to the Democratic Party played a major role in many key races, claiming that Latinos had no discernible effect on "any election outside of California's Prop8" (nice touch there Dan ...always looking to fuel divisive fires).

Stein of course is border-line delusional in these claims:

Facts on Latino Vote in 2008:

As post-election analysis from pundits moves from discussing how the Latinos turned out in favor of Democrats at historic levels in 2008 to analyzing why this shift occurred, many have recognized that immigration was the driving factor behind Latino mobilization and their break towards Democratic candidates.

The Latino vote comprised 9% of the electorate nationwide in 2008, a figure that totals over 11 million voters. This turnout represents a jump of over 3 million voters since 2004, when 7.6 million Latinos cast ballots, and is approximately double the Latino turnout of 2000. Ominously for Republicans, the Latino vote broke overwhelmingly Democratic in 2008. After supporting Democratic candidate John Kerry by a 56-44% margin against George W. Bush in 2004, Latinos gave Democratic candidate Barack Obama their support at a 67-31% margin against John McCain. As the New York Times showed, Latinos' movement towards Democrats was one of the biggest demographic shifts from 2004 to 2008.

The reason behind this shift, according to political pundits and strategists of both parties, was the Republicans' tarnished brand related to the issue of immigration. As Latino polling expert Sergio Bendixen stated, "the debate over immigration started driving Hispanic voters toward the Democratic party, and the economic black hole clinched it."

Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL), stated on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "the very divisive rhetoric of the immigration debate set a very bad tone for our brand as Republicans...there were voices within our party, frankly, which if they continue with that kind of rhetoric, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, that so much of it was heard, we're going to be relegated to minority status."
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Facts on Anti-Immigrant Success at the Polls:

Following (is an analysis) of competitive House and Senate races in 2008 where the Republican candidate tried to use illegal immigration as a wedge issue against a Democratic challenger. The ... analysis focused on the “swing districts” that the Cook Political Report considered in play as of October 2, a month before the elections.

Based on our review, 20 of 22 winners advocated immigration policies beyond enforcement-only. This includes 5 of 5 Senate races and 15 of 17 House races listed in the “toss-up,” “leans Republican,” or “leans Democratic” categories of the Cook Political Report. Clearly, the Republican illegal immigration wedge strategy has proved a spectacular failure in these competitive districts and states.

Until now, the conventional wisdom has been that illegal immigration is a wedge issue that works to mobilize “the base” in the Republican Party, win over swing voters frustrated with the problem, and hurt Democrats who support comprehensive immigration reform. Conventional wisdom has also held that the number of Latino voters who could hold anti-immigrant politicians accountable for their rhetoric is too small to make a difference outside of Democratic strongholds.

This election stands that conventional wisdom on its head. Swing voters chose Democrats overwhelmingly, including many candidates that stood up for a more comprehensive approach to immigration reform than their hard-line opponents. Latino voters turned out in record numbers and fled the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republican Party in droves. Their participation in the 2008 elections contributed to Senator Obama’s wins in key battleground states like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida, and also helped Democrats win contested House and Senate races in these states and more. Meanwhile, the anti-immigrant forces that have all but hijacked the Republican Party proved to be inconsequential at best, except for their role in potentially driving the GOP into the political wilderness

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At this point Stein turned the discussion over to Julie Kirchner for further analysis....or as any rational person would call it... grasping at straws.

Kirchner, following Steins lead, tried to prove his claim that anti-immigrant rhetoric actually won many elections for strong restrictionist candidates.

Her examples to prove this undeniable fact:

• Incumbent, Sen. Jeff Sessions managed to win his run-off election in one of the most Republican states in the union.



• Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn managed to beat a weak opponent in Texas



• Rep. Duncan Hunter JR was able to capture his father's seat in California's most right-wing district



• Incumbent, Rep. Brian Bilbray managed to eek out a five point win in a +5 Republican district.

This is hardly an overwhelming display of anti-immigrant power given the devastating loses the anti-immigrant caucus has suffered in the last three cycles.

Then there was Kirchner's unique analysis of the failed attempt by Hazzelton mayor, Lou Barletta, to take Pennsylvania's 11th district.

A restritionist poster boy, who was the darling of the anti-immigrant movement, Barletta received hours of free air-time from blowhards like Lou Dobbs yet still came up short. But according to Kirchner, his loss can be attributed to the fact that the Democrats threw all their heavy guns at the hometown favorite.

She claimed it took the combined efforts of Barack Obama, and both Clintons to defeat Barletta:

"They pulled out all the stops. It took two Presidents and a future Secretary of State to beat Barletta." Said Kirchner.

But of course she failed to mention that John McCain, Cindy McCain, Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani all made numerous appearances in Barletta's district.

As a key presidential battleground, both parties spent enormous resources trying to win it.....none of which had anything to do with Barletta...whose own party pretty much ignored him.

But then again, in FAIR's alternative universe....anything is possible.

Eventually, Stein and friends finally got around the meat of their presentation....their strategic plan for the coming Congressional session. .. which seemed to consist of one thing ...renewing the government's E-Verify employee verification system.

No mention was made of any new legislation or initiatives ... just E-Verify, which Stein characterized as the "first battle of the new administration"

The renewal of the controversial system, which requires the use the Social Security Administration's error-ridden database, that contains 17mil faulty entries, as a method to verify employment eligibility for millions of workers, has stalled out in the Senate and will expire in March of 2009. Stein, looking to expand its use through legislation like last years STRIVE Act, sees the renewal as key towards forwarding his enforcement-only immigration policies.

But Steins wishful thinking doesn't change the fact that the E-verify system is so unreliable that it's opposed by employers and unions alike and the veracity of the database has been challenged successfully in federal court.

Errors in the database that E-Verify checks to determine work authorization status impact millions.

• 4.1%: error rate in the SSA database



• 17.8 million: number of discrepancies in the SSA database



• 12.7 million: number of database discrepancies pertaining to native-born U.S. citizens



• 1 in 25: number of new hires that would receive a tentative nonconfirmation based on error rates



• 55 million: approximate number of new hires per year in the U.S.



• 11,000: number of workers per day who would be flagged as ineligible for employment if E-Verify were mandatory for all employers



• 25: workers per work day per congressional district who would be flagged as ineligible for employment if the Shuler or Johnson bill passed, making E-Verify mandatory for all employers

But outside of that, Stein seemed mostly content to spend the next four years playing defense, doing his best to make sure that no actual reform gets enacted.

"We're going to be extremely vocal if we see at a time when hundred of thousands or millions of Americans are losing their jobs the administration is pushing legislation that’s going to dramatically increase labor completion...

We would anticipate that certainly house republicans are going to be more vocal on the restrictionist side ..ah.. because .. they were reined in first by the Bush folks and then by McCain folks... "

Lastly, he touched upon workplace enforcement. ...and once again wandering off into realm of the ridiculous ...making up his own facts and reality:

"In our view this would be a very divisive move to simply end workplace enforcement when the President elect said that enforcement and employer sanctions were one of the cornerstones of his reform policies,,,

There is evidence, and I think its pretty substantial, that where the meatpacking operations have taken place for example, lawfully admitted immigrants, refugees, ...refugees in need, have stepped forward to take these jobs. Wages have gone up, bargaining leverage and unionization rates have increased ,,, and this is what the American dream has always been about, and so we will very vigorously denounce that move if that’s something he's going to do"

I guess Stein must be talking about Postville Iowa, where the plant has been shut down and all the workers left jobless...including the "refugees in need" that Agriprocessors flew in from the island nation of Palau.

Or maybe it was it was Pilgrims Pride that just filed for bankruptcy after it's plants in five states were raided last April.

Or was it the Smithfield, where they still used prison labor to fill the ranks of missing workers

Or Crider, where they were busing in felons on probation from a state prison and residents of a homeless mission from nearby Macon, and later tried to bring in Laotian Hmong immigrant workers and their families from Minnesota and Wisconsin to fill jobs no locals would take.

Yeah...these raids have created a workers paradise according Stein....but then again he seems to live in a reality of his own making.

Unfortunately, he has enough money and a big enough megaphone to try to make others believe in his reality also.

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