To begin with, Wilson is a member of the Southern heritage group, Sons of Confederate Veterans, which favors secession and defends slavery is stock full of white supremecists and right-wing extremists. Crooks and Liars further reports that, as a state legislator, Wilson went against his own party and voted with seven lone right-wingers to keep the Dixie Rebel flag flying over the South Carolina state capitol building.

As a federal lawmaker, Wilson became a member of the House Immigration Reform Caucus (HIRC), a group of (mostly Republican) representatives founded by former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) with the mission of stopping “the explosive growth in illegal immigration,” “reversing the growth in legal immigration,” and halting “amnesties.” Other notoriously anti-immigrant members of HIRC include Steve King (R-IA), who described immigration as a “slow-motion Holocaust,” and Lamar Smith (R-TX), who equates undocumented immigrants with “terrorist weapons.” HIRC members Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), and King all proclaimed that undocumented immigrants would receive health care benefits long before Wilson’s outburst. The two Republican representatives, Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) and Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV), who proposed amendments to the House health care bill that would’ve added stringent citizenship verification mechanisms are active members of the HIRC as well. Heller and Deal also lead the fight to overturn the 14th Amendment and end the policy of automatically granting anyone who is born in the country US citizenship.

Wilson’s reaction last night was certainly out of line, but his indefensible fit of temper was illustrative of a larger discussion taking place amongst HIRC members and anti-immigrant groups who see the health care debate as yet another opportunity to promote their nativist agenda by advancing illogical fears, misplaced anger, and calculated misinformation. HIRC is now headed by Brian Bilbray (R-CA) — a former lobbyist for the anti-immigrant hate group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The Center for New Community reports that FAIR paid him almost $300,000 for work on its behalf between May 2002 and July 2005. Since then, Bilbray has announced his intentions to “work closely” with groups such as FAIR and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), another “FAIR spin-off group” that has been identified as part of the “nativist lobby.” It comes as no surprise that HIRC’s health care reform haters have regularly relied on the shoddy “expertise” of FAIR, CIS, and their sister-group, NumbersUSA, to promote the myth that undocumented immigrants will be covered under the bill. Another anti-immigrant group, Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), has gone as far to call Wilson a “brave Congressmen” for calling Obama out on his “lie” and have advised their membership to personally thank him.

Wilson has co-sponsored several pieces of English-only legislation and supported efforts to report undocumented immigrants who seek emergency medical care. In 2006, he declared “it is time to curtail the invasion of illegal aliens.”

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Suffolk County made national headlines last year when an Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, was brutally stabbed to death by an alleged gang of teenagers who proudly called themselves the “Caucasian Crew.” According to SPLC, local officials “minimized the tragedy” and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy brushed it off as a “one-day story.” Maybe that’s because, for Suffolk County’s immigrant community, hate-motivated violence is an everyday occurrence. Since the number of anti-Latino hate crimes in the US has risen by over 40% from 2003-2007, SPLC describes Suffolk County as a “microcosm” of a larger national trend. In fact, Lucero’s death was “hardly an isolated incident.” Latino immigrants claim they have been regularly taunted, spit on, beaten with baseball bats, shot by BB guns, and attacked with pepper spray. If they ride their bicycles, they are often run off the road or hit with objects. In 2000, two Mexican day laborers were nearly beaten to death with gardening tools. Just a couple weeks ago, a Latino man was allegedly beaten and robbed in a racially charged attack just a stone’s throw away from where Lucero was found dead.

After Lucero’s death, many Suffolk County community members went on to say that Steve Levy had “blood on his hands” and SPLC has gone on to identify him as “the Enabler.” Levy has dedicated most of his political career to promoting policies aimed at “uprooting and expelling immigrants” that have simultaneously terrorized and demonized the local immigrant community. He even founded an organization dedicated to lobbying for immigration crackdowns. He’s also called anti-hate crime protesters “politically correct histrionics” and his critics “Communists” and “anarchists.” But blood isn’t just on Levy’s hands. County Legislator Michael D’Andre said that if an influx of immigrants ever entered his town, “we’ll be up in arms; we’ll be out with baseball bats.” County Legislator Elie Mystal openly threatened violence against Latino day laborers lining up for work, “If I’m living in a neighborhood and people are gathering like that, I would load my gun and start shooting, period. Nobody will say it, but I’m going to say it.”

Shortly after Lucero’s death, his brother told local reporters that Marcelo was “elated by the election of Barack Obama” the week before:

“He saw it as a chance for people with brown skin to be seen as equals. Instead, my brother was killed because of his appearance.”

Unfortunately, Obama’s election together with the economic recession has also sparked a rise in radical right-wing violence against immigrants and others, and Lucero was just one of its first victims. Everyone knows that words have consequences, and in the case of anti-immigrant vitriol, the aftermath can be deadly. If conservatives don’t acknowledge and address the volatility of their base, Lucero’s death will end up on a long list of casualties of the war nativists are waging on America’s immigrants.

After Beck called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people,” Color of Change and its Co-Founder Van Jones convinced 46 companies to cancel their advertisements aired during Beck’s show. In response, Kreep then founded DefendGlenn.com. Kreep himself subscribes to the delusional notion that Obama “has been hiding the truth [about his birthplace] from the American people.” He has also expressed frustration about recent waves of immigration to the US, having told the Los Angeles Times:

“When the Italians came to America, they assimilated. When the Irish came to America, they assimilated…It isn’t the language barrier; it’s the willingness to assimilate. It’s not that hard to come here speaking only a little English and assimilate.”

In 1992, the gay community and the Anti-Defamation League expressed outrage when Kreep brought his “purportedly anti-homosexual views” to San Diego’s Human Relations Commission.

Those Kreep has chosen to defend as an attorney are even more telling of his radical right-wing agenda. Kreep’s professional biography reveals that he has served as General Counsel to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps — a militant “nativist extremist” group — and has been honored by the anti-choice extremist group Operation Rescue for “his services to the community.” Most recently, Kreep defended the San Diego Minutemen and help win them more than $150,000 in damages for a lawsuit filed against Caltrans for revoking their Adopt a Highway permit. He also defended “anti-immigration crusader” John Monti who was charged with battery, interfering with the civil rights of two day laborers, and filing a false police report. In 2007, Kreep defended anti-immigration activist Roy Warden, who was convicted of one count of assault and two counts of threats and intimidation after burning a Mexican flag outside a Mexican consulate. Warden was also videotaped “threatening to blow a child’s brains out,” and vowed “he would continue to exercise his right to free speech, burn Mexican flags and protect himself from others.”

Fundamentalist pastor Wiley Drake, who has publicly prayed for Obama’s death, has hired Kreep to pursue a lawsuit challenging Obama’s birthplace and presidency.

Mercer is accused of participating in a scheme in which official-looking letters were sent to homeowners offering to reduce their property taxes in exchange for a $189 processing fee. The lawsuit alleges that the solicitations were “completely fraudulent and deceptive” and that the defendants duped consumers into believing they were paying a legitimate business for services that could not be performed. Mercer was identified as the owner of the Post Office box listed on the scam letters. She claims that she was asked to open the Post Office box by a friend and that she did not know its intended purpose.

It’s pretty ironic that someone who is so worried about “illegal” immigrants harming US citizens is currently being accused of scamming unsuspecting American homeowners and breaking the law herself. However, Mercer’s legal woes are miniscule compared to those faced by other Minuteman leaders. Most recently, Shawna Forde, leader of the Minuteman American Defense group, was charged with the brutal murder of a 9-year-old girl. In 2007, former leaders of the Minuteman Project sued founder Jim Gilchrist for allegedly using $300,000 of the group’s money to promote his book and run for Congress. Gilchrist then filed a defamation suit against his colleagues.

Former MCDC President Chris Simcox was also mired in legal controversy. Anti-immigration advocates across the country turned against him when he failed to account for $1.6-$1.8 million in private donations he claimed to have raised for an “Israeli-style” barrier” based on “the fences used in Gaza and the West Bank.” The project turned out to be little more than a two mile-long barbed-wire cattle fence. Simcox’s own ex-wife fought to obtain full custody of their son, describing Simcox as being “prone to sudden, violent rages.” In January 2003, Simcox was arrested while while on patrol with Civil Homeland Defense for illegally carrying a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun in a national park. Simcox is planning on running against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) this fall, claiming “I work for the people, period.”

Mercer’s predecessor Al Garza resigned two weeks ago saying that MCDC “is now on a path that I cannot endorse.”

Baker argues that the census should only count citizens and legal permanent residents. Baker complains that, by his math, “illegal aliens” could result in California getting nine House seats “it doesn’t deserve.” According to Baker:

“The U.S. Census Bureau is set to count all persons physically present in the country—including large numbers who are here illegally. The result will unconstitutionally increase the number of representatives in some states and deprive some other states of their rightful political representation. Citizens of ‘loser’ states should be outraged…The Census Bureau can of course collect whatever data Congress authorizes. But Congress must not permit the bureau to unconstitutionally redefine who are “We the People of the United States.”

However, Baker forgets that the census serves many other purposes, namely the allocation of scarce federal resources for states and localities. Census data is used to distribute federal funding and Community Development Block Grants that benefit all residents. In a recently released report, the Drum Major Institute (DMI) shows that not counting undocumented immigrants would lead to inaccurate demographic information and result in costly mistakes in infrastructure, education, and healthcare planning. DMI points out that businesses also rely on accurate social, economic and demographic census information so they can make smart investment decisions. DMI cites a PricewaterhouseCoopers study of the 2000 Census which projected a loss of $4 billion from 2002 to 2012 for the District of Columbia and 31 affected states due to undercounting of the total population.

Finally, DMI argues that “leaving out undocumented immigrants deprives citizens of political power and political voice.” While Baker worries about the fate of “loser” states, DMI points out that concerns about “vote dilution are misplaced.” Children, ex-felons, legal residents, and several other nonvoters are also included in the census apportionment data in order to paint an accurate portrait of a state’s demographic makeup and population density that’s key to effective and adequate representation. Michelle Chen at the Colorlines Blog points out that excluding undocumented immigrants from the census is usually proposed by nativists who care more about making “a politically invisible population disappear,” than rational policy-making.

Anti-immigrant zealot Mark Krikorian himself criticized Baker for conflating “illegal aliens” with legal residents, describing his faulty logic as being “sloppy and poorly thought-out.” Krikorian isn’t much more enlightening. He suggests either asking census participants about their immigration status (which would increase distrust and dissuade most foreign residents from cooperating) or stepping-up hardline immigration enforcement measures to “scare off illegals” altogether.

Meanwhile, the Public Policy Institute of California reports that many immigrants are leaving California, which could cost the state a House seat after the 2010 census is completed. In the case of Baker’s homestate, immigrants have given Louisiana a much-needed population boost and helped rebuild its infrastructure following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

BECK: Anybody who says, hey the unions — they just love America–they do. They love America with all their little itty-bitty heart. And they love the American worker. And that’s all they’re trying to do — is help the American worker…Why would a union want to bring in illegals that are working below minimum wage, working in awful conditions? Why would they want to do that unless they were trying not to protect American jobs but just trying to get rich and have a whole bunch of new people signed up to be union members?

PHILLIPS: You hit it Glenn. They simply want more of the forced dues that come from new union members, regardless of their status — whether they’re here legally or not. They just want more money for their coffers to pursue their genuinely crazy liberal agenda.

BECK: …There’s nothing like starting your week just, ya know, going after the unions.

Watch it:

There are actually a lot of reasons why unions would want to organize immigrant workers who earn low wages working in miserable conditions — and they don’t include any sort of get-rich-quick scheme or “crazy liberal agenda.”

When immigrant workers are exploited, it drives down the wages, benefits, and working conditions of all workers in that industry. Cristina Jiménez, an immigration policy consultant at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy has pointed out that “consigning undocumented workers to a precarious existence undermines all who aspire to a middle-class standard of living.” By organizing both immigrant and native-born workers, unions are better able to negotiate contracts that improve the standard of living for all of their members across the board.

Undocumented workers are extremely difficult to organize and EFCA would in fact make that job easier by strengthening penalties against companies that illegally coerce or intimidate workers to prevent them from forming a union. Increased union membership would help establish a secure workforce and lead to increased output and a more productive economy. Union workers earn 30% higher wages than their non-union counterparts and pay 8% less in health care deductibles. 72% receive retirement pension benefits compared to the 15% of non-union workers. EFCA is essentially a profit-making endeavor for the U.S. economy as a whole.

The most important thing that Beck misses is that it’s not the unions, but rather the unscrupulous employers who profit from hiring and exploiting undocumented immigrants that hurt American workers. It is not the union’s responsibility to verify the immigration status of a company’s employees, but it is a union’s duty to represent the interests of all of its members.

Arpaio blames his budget crisis on city council members that voted to limit his funds. Back in April, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona voted to postpone the acceptance of $1.6 million from the state that would’ve gone towards Arpaio’s controversial immigration enforcement tactics which allegedly include racial profiling and discrimination. At the time, Arpaio warned that “(Board Chairman Max Wilson) better be careful on cutting my budget, since I am investigating the Board of Supervisors.” Since Arpaio’s empty threats didn’t work, he is now suggesting that county supervisors should take furloughs or salary cuts as well when in fact some of them already have.

County Manager David Smith says he has decided to take a $23,000 pay cut this year — an amount that dwarfs Arpaio’s meager “charitable contribution.” Maybe Arpaio wasn’t aware of it since Smith didn’t hold a self-aggrandizing press conference to announce his goodwill to the world. Arizona Central reporter Yvonne Wingett points out that supervisors Don Stapley, Andy Kunasek and Max Wilson already donate thousands of dollars to charities every year.

As for himself, Arpaio says he can’t take a furlough because he is an elected official. But what he could do is change the way he operates his police department to cut costs and fight crime. According to a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles published in the East Valley Tribune, Arpaio’s budget nearly doubled from $37 million to $72.5 million since 2001. As of 2008, his office created a $1.3 million deficit in just three months. According to the Tribune, these costs are all a result of his immigration-enforcement crusade that has netted a lot of brown-skinned traffic violators, but neglected violent crimes and homicides which have gone up by 166%.

The Phoenix News Times blog accuses Arpaio and many of his top commanders of “double dipping,” or collecting both retirement benefits and a salary. Arpaio reportedly is paid a pension in addition to his $97,000 salary from his former employer, the DEA.

“Just last month, in an extremely close race in Minnesota between incumbent Senator Norm Coleman and comedian Al Franken, Franken was finally declared a winner months after the actual election. While the recount battle raged, no one within the government or within the news media gave a thought to investigating whether or not illegal aliens or legal immigrants voted in the Minnesota for that contested senate seat.”

Kouri also suggests that “illegal aliens” may have cost Al Gore the state of Florida during the 2000 presidential race. He goes as far to include a nasty quote from New Jersey GOP strategist Janice Martin who seems to pose her own conspiracy theory:

“Americans would be shocked to discover that hundreds of thousands of general election voters are illegal aliens, green-card immigrants, and criminals who’ve murdered, raped and robbed US citizens. And guess which political party benefits the most from their votes? The one that’s pushing for amnesty and a bag full of free goodies.“

Kouri relies on a 2008 Heritage Report which uses anecdotal “research” and self-contradicting arguments to fan the flames of paranoia and convince right-wingers that they’ve acquired more dirt on the immigrant population. The report repeatedly contradicts itself, first claiming that “thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide,” and then later admitting “there is no reliable method to determine the number of non-citizens registered or actually voting.”

If a reliable method did exist, chances are it would make Kouri and the Heritage Foundation blush. NYU Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice goes as far to claim that one is more likely to be struck by lightening than to come across a case of case of widespread voter fraud. The Brennan Center explains that many accusations of voter fraud, such as those put forth by Kouri and the Heritage Foundation, are actually due to database errors. The report ultimately states:

“Many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire…These claims of voter fraud are frequently used to justify policies that do not solve the alleged wrongs, but that could well disenfranchise legitimate voters. Overly restrictive identification requirements for voters at the polls — which address a sort of voter fraud more rare than death by lightning — is only the most prominent example.”

I’d like to suggest a little surgery that will make the symbol more appropriate today: Let’s get rid of The Poem…Inscribed on a small brass plaque mounted inside the statue’s stone base, the poem is an appendix, added belatedly, and it can safely be removed, shrouded or at least marked with a big asterisk.

According to Suro, the Statue of Liberty was meant to be a symbol of freedom and liberty, not immigration. Suro also points out that most immigrants come to the U.S. for economic reasons that he deems totally unrelated to the political values that Lazarus’ poem conveys. Suro thinks most immigrants are “adventurous” and “ambitious,” not “tired and poor.”

Yet Suro doesn’t account for the fact that, for many immigrants, shear economic destitution is often what drives ambition and any sense of adventure. He also doesn’t consider the notion that economic mobility (or the lack thereof) is often tied hand-in-hand with economic justice and various degrees of political despotism. Maybe immigrants don’t come as “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” but chances are they’d have an easier time feeding their families in their home countries if government corruption and dysfunction didn’t lock them into rigid class systems that even emerging democracies are still struggling to shake off.

Now, Suro’s notion that “we live in a different era of immigration” and that the “schmaltzy sonnet offers a dangerously distorted picture” is being used by others to argue against immigration altogether. A Fox News broadcast that aired this past holiday weekend used an interview with Suro as a launching pad for Mark Krikorian’s vehemently anti-immigrant views:

KRIKORIAN: The problem really isn’t that immigrants are coming here to rip us off. This isn’t like a welfare queen issue. The problem here is that immigrants are a mismatch for a modern society like ours.

Watch it:

Krikorian also followed-up his interview with an article, “Bad Poetry Makes for Bad Policy,” in which he referenced Suro’s remarks to convince his readers that the U.S. has “outgrown” immigration. Krikorian authored the book, entitled “The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal,” which features the Statue of Liberty on the cover with her hand blocking new waves of immigration. Most economic data suggests that Krikorian is wrong.

The report itself is written by FAIR’s Director of Special Projects, Jack Martin, a former U.S. Consular Diplomat with no environmental, scientific, or academic credentials to speak of. In the report Martin uses anecdotes and inferences to connect rising U.S.energy consumption to immigration levels. Without a single citation other than three endnotes included in the back of the report, Martin spends nine pages arguing that energy consumption has little do with how energy is being used and everything to do with the immigrants who are using it. FAIR’s corresponding press release claims:

[The report] addresses America’s stifled immigration policy debate: it finds that America’s massive immigration-fueled population growth was the single largest contributing factor to the nation’s increased energy consumption and carbon emissions over the past 35 years. Even without a massive amnesty for illegal aliens supported by President Obama and congressional leaders, immigration will be the driving factor as U.S. population approaches the half billion mark by mid-century.

King’s argument also invokes xenophobic panic by referencing the fertility rates of Hispanic women. His whole thesis is ultimately based on the dim-witted idea that the entire energy problem would be resolved if immigrants go away, not taking into account that they will also be consuming energy in their home countries.

Aside from basing his findings on flawed logic, King has his facts wrong. When complaining about the unfairness associated with the stringent Kyoto Protocal standards, King claims that immigration is the main reason that the rate of population growth is so much higher in the U.S. compared to Europe and therefore curbing immigration is the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, according to the World Resources Institute, the U.S. is home to 23% fewer people than the European nations of the EU-15, yet still produces 70% more greenhouse gases.

Scapegoating immigrants is easy, actually solving our environmental problems is a lot more complicated. FAIR fails to recognize that energy consumption is driven by a host of factors totally unrelated to population size, such as societal dependence on polluting and non-renewable fossil fuels; utilization of energy-efficient technologies; and the development of mass transit systems that minimize individual automobile use. Along those lines, the McKinsey Global Institute offers a more viable solution to residential energy consumption levels: promoting policies that boost energy productivity — the level of output achieved from the energy consumed — such as building shells, compact fluorescent lighting, and high-efficiency water heating.

FAIR isn’t the only group to blame immigrants for environmental problems — they join the ranks of hate and restrictionist groups like the American Immigration Control Foundation, the Social Contract Press, and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which last month released a report entitled “The Environmental Argument for Reducing Immigration to the United States.”

However, while claiming that he didn’t want to be invited anyway, King has spent the last week attacking Obama for not inviting more representatives that oppose “amnesty”:

KING: The White House stacked the deck and packed today’s summit with amnesty advocates. President Obama wants an amnesty bill, and while cynically creating a false perception of inclusiveness and bipartisanship, brought in a group that, almost without exception, supports his vision of rewarding law breakers…By not engaging with those who disagree with his pro-amnesty views, President Obama is holding an immigration summit that gives a cold shoulder to millions of Americans. As for me, I would much rather be on the outside of the White House speaking up for the Rule of Law than on the inside going through the motions.

Obama has indicated that he wants to start a productive dialogue on immigration reform and his meeting last week was aimed at uniting “problem-solvers.” A closer look at King’s record reveals that there’s probably a good reason why he did not fit the White House’s criteria. The Anti-Defamation League writes of King:

Congressman Steve King has characterized immigrants — both legal and undocumented — as criminals and disease-carriers. He has spoken alongside leaders of border vigilante groups and advocated a border “wall” topped with electrified wire to stop what he has called a “slow motion Holocaust” of undocumented immigration into the United States. King addressed the House of Representatives and asserted that undocumented immigration is “a slow-rolling, slow-motion terrorist attack on the United States.”

King’s views have won him the the wide support of several anti-immigrant organizations, some of which are identified hate groups. Restrictionist groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Numbers USA, and VDare have all praised King’s efforts and he has been a featured speaker at many of their events. King has also reportedly accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the nativist Minuteman PAC and the U.S. Immigration Reform (USIR) PAC, of which the wife of eugenacist John Tanton is the president.

King may have also been excluded from last week’s meeting because he is generally out of touch with most of the American public. King claimed that:

KING: The American people want this Administration to enforce existing immigration laws and secure our borders…The balance of the views inside the room at today’s White House immigration summit does not reflect the views of the American public.

However, a poll released today shows that 89% of King’s own GOP base of voters support comprehensive immigration reform that requires undocumented immigrants to register for legal status, pay back taxes, and learn English in order to be eligible for U.S. citizenship.

SAVAGE: The illegals [immigrants] have destroyed the state of California. They’ve sucked it dry like lemons. They’ve sucked it dry. Free medical, free schooling, knocking out babies like tasty bread. What do you want me to say it’s not true? What do you think I’m blind? You think they’re going to reign me in? You think those people on the left are going to scare me into not telling you what’s real? I’m never going to stop. God will stop me, not you. Go walk around and see who’s having the babies in the state of California–14 year-old-gang-banger children are knocking them out like tasty bread.

Savage proceeded to victimize California white males for carrying the economic burden of the state:

SAVAGE: Go blame everybody. Go blame the white male who makes the money in the state. Blame the white male who makes all the money in the state for bankrupting the state. Go ahead.

Listen:

California’s budget crisis is no white man’s burden and white males certainly aren’t the only individuals contributing to the state economy. Immigrants have been called the “super-stars” of California’s profitable high-tech industry. Google, Ebay, and Intel were all started by California’s immigrants.

And while Savage might like to think that most of California’s immigrant population is busy robbing grandmas and pushing baby carriages all day long, immigrants — both legal and illegal — make up more than 1/3 of California’s labor force. In fact, according to economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California, immigrant workers complement native-born California workers and most native-born Californians have experienced wage gains as a result. While there is a cost associated with immigrants and their children — as there is with any individual who lives and goes to school in the United States — California’s immigrants pay roughly $30 billion in federal taxes, $5.2 billion in state income taxes, and $4.6 billion in sales taxes each year.

Most sources attribute California’s budget shortfall to the state’s long-term investment projects that rely heavily on income taxes during a time of high unemployment and the state’s inability to pass workable solutions due to the political stalemate caused by the complicated state legislative system.