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Social Justice Movements Standing Strong Against Anti-Immigrant Inroads by Rebecca Poswolsky

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Social Justice Movements Standing Strong Against Anti-Immigrant Inroads by Rebecca Poswolsky NO. 68 SprinG 2011 Social Justice Movements Standing Strong Against Anti-Immigrant Inroads By Rebecca Poswolsky Editors’ Note: January, 2011 has already proven a sobering transition into the new year and new de- cade. Continued political violence in Arizona, the state that entrenched discrimination against immi- grants through legislation last year, and a concerted effort across fourteen states to attack the birth- right citizenship guaranteed in the 14th Amendment leave many of us disheartened. Yet committed social justice activists and organizations across many different movements are standing strong against these challenges. This month, PopDev offers two companion pieces illuminating the political context of anti-immigrant scapegoating within the U.S., the growing resistance to this politics of hate and exclu- sion, and the road forward. — Co-editors Katie McKay Bryson and Betsy Hartmann It is a well-documented fact that there are seg- spaces. It is important to the future of environ- ments of the environmental movement that mentalism to distinguish between activists and focus primarily or partially on population control organizations who focus on population that as the crucial site of changing humans’ dam- take an anti-immigrant stance, and those com- aging relationship to natural resources and wild mitted to honest, participatory conversations with people of color and immigrants around the complex social dynamics and historical prob- lems with the focus on population, and possible environmental justice-based solutions. For de- cades, inclusive discussions of this nature have been nearly impossible, partly due to structural racism and the scapegoating function that the Think. Act. Connect. U.S. anti-immigrant movement has played. While countless organizations and individuals For people, environment and justice. have contributed to the difficulty, one man in particular must be recognized as helping to create and fund the nation’s most powerful anti- immigrant incursion into environmentalism. A publication of the Population and Development Program John Tanton stands at the heart of the most CLPP • Hampshire College • Amherst, MA 01002 influential anti-immigrant network in the U.S. 413.559.5506 • http://popdev.hampshire.edu as the founder of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, designated a hate Opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors unless otherwise specified. group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. While FAIR claims to represent the “mainstream” of the reproductive choice activists have been engaged American anti-immigrant movement, it is a carefully in fighting xenophobia, certain segments of these crafted entity whose mission is to achieve the goal of movements have also been infiltrated by a continued zero immigration to the U.S. by targeting immigrants overlap with the anti-immigrant movement. For as the cause of economic, population and environ- example, Sarah G. Epstein currently serves as both sec- mental problems. retary on the board of FAIR, and the board of Planned Parenthood’s Metropolitan Washington, D.C. chapter.5 Tanton was FAIR’s chairman for the first eight years of In October 2010, Epstein (who has also been heavily its existence and continues to sit on its board of direc- involved in promoting the controversial Quinacrine tors. John Tanton’s constellation of anti-immigrant chemical sterilization method) received the Emily K.E. groups reaches beyond FAIR into both white suprema- Bradley Champions of Choice Honorees award from cist, anti-Semitic organizations and even the main- Planned Parenthood.6 stream conservation and reproductive choice move- ments in this country. Similarly, William Ryerson, who is the President of John Tanton-tied organization, Progressives for Immigration In the 1960s, Tanton helped set up a Planned Parent- Reform (PFIR) is also the President of Population Media hood Clinic in northern Michigan. While access to Center, and the President of the Population Institute. safe and affordable reproductive healthcare is a vital Ryerson is also an advisory board member of Califor- human need, Tanton’s focus on family planning was nians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), an organi- rooted in his devotion to population stabilization.1 zation with undeniable ties to white supremacy. Its From 1971 to 1975, Tanton was chairman of the Sierra media director, Rick Oltman, was identified in a news- Club’s National Population Committee.2 His interest in letter as a member of Council of Conservative Citizens’ mainstream environmental and reproductive choice (CofCC), an offshoot of the old White Citizens Council. movements was based on his belief that popula- Oltman also shared a stage with Virginia Abernethy, a tion growth is the primary threat to environment self-described white separatist, at a Council of Conser- and society in the U.S., and his commitment to anti- vative Citizens conference: at the time, he was Western immigration politics. Tanton’s credibility within and Regional Coordinator for FAIR. dedication to mainstream groups is no coincidence: Tanton would later use his strong, visible presence in Whether it is the many anti-immigrant groups con- U.S. conservation and population control movements nected to Tanton that use environmental arguments to to gain legitimacy for his now fully-developed anti- accuse immigrants of littering during border crossings immigrant stance. or monopolizing water supplies; or the Weeden Foun- dation (which provided seed money for the Apply the To found FAIR in the late 1970s, John Tanton solicited Brakes Network, an anti-immigrant coalition focused and received over $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, on limiting “domestic population growth”), it’s clear a pro-eugenics group that aims to use its financial lar- that both individuals and organizations are working gesse to fund groups that promote “racial betterment” to inject an anti-immigrant politics into the environ- — a scientifically disproven theory which claims that a mental and reproductive freedom movements.7 biologically-caused IQ difference exists between white and non-white people. FAIR, the financial progeny of Some segments of the anti-immigrant movement are this group (which self-describes as promoting “racial trying to control and limit discussions around the en- betterment,” or what most outsiders would call white vironment to the “numbers game.” Groups like Apply supremacy), has recently taken credit for co-drafting the Brakes focus on shifting blame away from the Arizona’s anti-immigrant Senate Bill 1070, signed into negative influences of globalization onto populations law on April 23, 2010.3 Beginning with FAIR, Tanton that are often the worst impacted by environmental has created an empire of organizations consisting of dangers. While those most affected are left out of the lobbyists, lawyers, legislators, and “experts.”4 These dialogue except as scapegoats, the Apply the Brakes groups have permeated the country’s sociopolitical network uses arguments pulled directly from the debate by embracing broadly-defined immigrant neo-Malthusian tradition born when Thomas Malthus scapegoating as a primary platform. published “An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798.” Malthus held that the discrepancy between the While many mainstream environmentalists and rate of population and the rate of agricultural growth DIFFERENTAKES http://popdev.hampshire.edu No. 68 • Spring 2011 2 would lead to a permanent cycle of food shortages movements.9 Those determined to promote a truly di- and famine. His writings gained influence in rapidly- verse and accountable movement have taken the lead, transforming 19th Century England and, along with signed this pledge and are working with each other to later Social Darwinism, were used to justify ideologies cut off anti-immigrant inroads. that essentially blamed the victims of early industrial development — development that swallowed up, Let’s imagine the consequences if we are not able displaced and destroyed communities, and which was to accomplish this feat, and imagine the potential if itself highly environmentally destructive — for their we succeed. Environmental groups funded by the own misfortune. Weeden Foundation have called the Center for New Community and asked if they should stop taking the The debate around ‘overpopulation’ is consistently foundation’s money. Organizations like Bark, a grass- employed as a tactic to lure roots environmental organiza- environmentally-minded people tion in Portland, Oregon, not into the fold of anti-immigrant only took the pledge, but made politics. Whether or not activists their position public.10 The envi- concentrate primarily on con- The environmental ronmental movement is taking necting environmental degrada- movement is taking ownership of the fact that there tion to population or consump- ownership of the fact is no space for anti-immigrant tion, any discussion about the that there is no space for sentiment within constructive environment must authentically anti-immigrant sentiment dialogues about the causes of ur- include the voices, knowledge within constructive gently important environmental and experiences of women of dialogues about the causes problems and climate change. color and immigrants.8 of urgently important To showcase this effort, the Arguments that place blame environmental problems Center for New Community on immigrants for trash on the and climate change. released “The Green War on Im- border, overcrowded highways, migrants,” a video
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