In early May, Susan Tully, the National Field Director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, held a meeting at the Anchorage Hilton to “work towards forming a local Anchorage immigration reform group,” according to the invitation to the event. Tully was apparently successful; in a recent cover story in the Press (“Without papers,” Nov. 5) we reported the existence of Alaskans for Legal Presence, a group headed by former Assemblyman Paul Bauer, which is advocating for the passage of House Bill 3, a piece of legislation sponsored by Representative Bob Lynn (R-Anchorage) which would require drivers licenses for immigrants to expire on the same day the immigrant’s visa expires.

Tully confirmed in an email she was working with Alaskans for Legal Presence.

FAIR’s presence in Alaska alarmed pro-immigration activists, like Robin Bronen and Mara Kimmel of the Alaska Immigration Justice Project. FAIR, which claims a quarter-million supporters, has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to a 21-page white paper by the SPLC’s Dr. Heidi Beirich titled “The Nativist Lobby,” “FAIR has long been marked by anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups. Recently, it has promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico’s secret designs on the American Southwest and an alternative theory alleging secret plans to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada.”

FAIR has a brochure responding to the SPLC’s hate group designation. “In countless articles and ‘investigative reports,’ the SPLC concluded that just about everyone actively opposed to amnesty and mass immigration was a ‘nativist’ a ‘white supremacist,’ or had ties to such groups and individuals,” it reads.

But it’s not just the SPLC that considers FAIR dangerous. The Anti-Defamation League—not mentioned by FAIR’s anti-SPLC brochure—has done extensive reporting on FAIR’s connections to the Pioneer Fund (the above-mentioned pro-eugenics organization that gave FAIR money), its founder John Tanton’s connections to white supremacists, and well-known extremists employed by FAIR.

The notoriety seems to be sticking. In October, Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan attended an event sponsored by FAIR and did a radio interview during the event, which prompted protests outside his office. Subsequently, Ryan released a statement saying, “Ryan agreed to the interview to discuss health care policy, but neither took part in an immigration event nor did he endorse or signify support of the organization in question.” Ryan also had his name removed from FAIR’s website, where it had said he took part in the “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event.

Representative Lynn, the sponsor of House Bill 3, doesn’t care for the outside involvement in his legislation.

“The thing that irritates me is I’ve got a narrow focus here,” he says. “I don’t want to get into a pissing contest between two advocacy groups at opposite ends of the political spectrum. My focus is HB3: If you don’t have the legal right to walk down the street, why should you have a right to drive down the same street? I don’t want to be caught in the crossfire on this thing. The SPLC says this and FAIR says that—I don’t give a damn.”

Lynn and his legislative aide Dirk Moffatt, who’s worked extensively on HB3, point out that the legislation wouldn’t apply to immigrants with expired visas who already have valid drivers licenses; they’d still be able to renew them without showing proof of legal immigration status. According to Moffatt, FAIR doesn’t care for that provision of HB3.

“FAIR doesn’t think [HB3] goes far enough,” Moffatt says. “This is basically just for new people; FAIR criticizes that; they’d like us to be REAL ID compliant.”

The REAL ID Act, passed in 2005, has been heavily criticized because a REAL ID driver’s license would effectively be a national identification card. That’s raised concerns about privacy abuses from both sides of the political spectrum. In 2006, the Alaska Legislature passed Legislative Resolve 68, encouraging congress to repeal the REAL ID Act, and in 2008, lawmakers passed a law prohibiting state agencies from expending funds solely for the purpose of implementing the REAL ID Act.

Moffatt says he was shocked to read about the Center for Immigration Studies—a think tank associated with FAIR, and with whom he’d been in contact—in the SPLC’s quarterly magazine The Intelligence Report.

“I’m reading this article and my gut is just turning; I’m thinking ‘oh my god, can this be true?’” Moffatt asked his contact about the article, which outlined the connections between CIS and white supremacist groups, and was assured “that’s what the SPLC does, is target them.”

Lynn and Moffatt characterize HB3 as an incentive for immigrants with expired visas to correct their immigration status, not as a punitive measure. “We’re encouraging them to get right,” Moffatt says. “We’re trying to make our ID cards more secure; this is one way of going about it.”

Lynn’s attitude towards immigration is markedly different from FAIR. FAIR opposes any sort of amnesty or mass guest-worker program. “Redefining illegal aliens as ‘guest-workers’ or anything else is just that: a redefinition that attempts to hide the fact it is an amnesty, not reform,” FAIR’s website declares.

Lynn doesn’t mention amnesty, but he certainly doesn’t take a hard line against guest worker programs as FAIR does.

“We’re not trying to fix the immigration system,” he says. “We can’t round them all up. We’ve got to move on; something reasonable has to be done to take care of those who are here, to make it possible to become a citizen legally. No, they shouldn’t be here, but they are, so you have to deal with the reality, not what you’d like to have happen. And the great majority of the people who come here illegally are decent, honest, hardworking people who want to better themselves, maybe send some money back home. But we don’t hate these people.”

bjk@anchoragepress.com