Arizona guv Brewer stumbles on air; Coloradans think ‘Maes’
Colorado GOP gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes is a regular guy candidate backed by the tea party, which has no appetite for career politicians and party insiders. But Maes is a pretty lousy businessman and doesn’t know much about water rights and has no campaign money and apparently pretended for some time that he was a secret agent. He’s also the target of a bungling and not-at-all-backroom-hatched plot by Colorado Republican Party honchos, who are looking to erase the entire last year of grassroots politics in the state and replace Maes on the ballot with one of their own.
But even Maes supporters must be having doubts now, given his campaign finance violations and his repeat fudging about his resume. That’s why this tape of Arizona’s GOP Governor Jan Brewer, an experienced politician by any measure when set against Maes, must also work to give them pause.
Today at his Facebook page, Maes rallied supporters with an inspirational status update:
I stand by everything I have said. When you get the media and the machine out of the way and the peoples voices are heard, we win. Do not be deceived by the word games and manipulation by the media. We are in the 4th quarter of the game and we must dig deeper than ever into our souls to find the strength to fight to the end. Do not waiver. This is all part of the journey.
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Arizona guv Brewer stumbles on air; Coloradans think ‘Maes’
Colorado GOP gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes is a regular guy candidate backed by the tea party, which has no appetite for career politicians and party insiders. But Maes is a pretty lousy businessman and doesn’t know much about water rights and has no campaign money and apparently pretended for some time that he was a secret agent. He’s also the target of a bungling and not-at-all-backroom-hatched plot by Colorado Republican Party honchos, who are looking to erase the entire last year of grassroots politics in the state and replace Maes on the ballot with one of their own.
But even Maes supporters must be having doubts now, given his campaign finance violations and his repeat fudging about his resume. That’s why this tape of Arizona’s GOP Governor Jan Brewer, an experienced politician by any measure when set against Maes, must also work to give them pause.
Today at his Facebook page, Maes rallied supporters with an inspirational status update:
I stand by everything I have said. When you get the media and the machine out of the way and the peoples voices are heard, we win. Do not be deceived by the word games and manipulation by the media. We are in the 4th quarter of the game and we must dig deeper than ever into our souls to find the strength to fight to the end. Do not waiver. This is all part of the journey.
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Colorado lawmakers, left and right, look to lead on immigration reform
Liberal Boulder Democratic Congressman Jared Polis and a small group of Colorado’s most conservative state lawmakers share a focus: They are all pushing for immigration policy reform and they all believe that now is the time to act.
Polis told the Colorado Independent during an August recess meeting with some of his Second District constituents that he thought election-year political analysts who are suggesting it’s a good idea to step back from major policy initiatives are misreading the American public.
“The public is speaking overwhelmingly that the time is now to fix our broken immigration system, especially with [sections] of the Arizona law being overturned– that has refocused attention on Washington.” Polis said there is plenty of time to get to work, that Congress will be in session three weeks in September and that there will be a post-election lame-duck special session in November or December.
Meantime in Arizona on Wednesday, lawmaker-members of the Republican Study Committee of Colorado, including hard-line social conservative senators Dave Schultheis of Colorado Springs, Scott Renfroe of Greeley and Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud and a number of Republicans running for House seats announced their support for Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 immigration law and their aim to pass similar legislation in Colorado.
Progressive political bloggers have tagged the move by the Republicans as grandstanding on a hot button topic that will play well in an election season where Colorado Republicans have struggled and where illegal immigration warrior Tom Tancredo has entered the race for governor on the American Constitution Party ticket and is sure to push the debate on immigration up front and to the right in races up and down the ticket.
Already, Colorado has some of the toughest immigration laws in the country. A series of strict statutes passed in 2006 under Gov. Bill Owens, the centerpiece of which denied undocumented immigrants access to taxpayer cash except where the ban would butt up against federal law. In 2007, the Denver Post deemed the new Colorado laws a failure, writing that they had cost the state millions in enforcement and had provided almost no savings in benefits payouts. The law also limited undocumented students’ access to financial aid for higher education.
The laws raised the thorny issue of spending on illegal immigrant children. The idea of letting undocumented children languish without schooling and beginning to work illegally at a young age with no hope of moving into mainstream legal life through no fault of their own seems like bad policy, or at least an absence of policy that works to move potential productive members of society to the fringes and into lawlessness.
Indeed, the matter of undocumented youth seems the most likely area where right and left might be able to come together, and for that reason analysts have suggested it might be a way to begin movement on reform.
In 2009, a “tuition equity” bill was introduced to the Colorado Senate that would have allowed undocumented immigrants who attend at least three years of high school in Colorado and graduate the chance to pay in-state tuition at college. The bill failed after five Democrats joined Republicans to vote against it.
Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, told the Colorado Independent that a similar bill is “unlikely to be introduced given the current fiscal position of the universities in the state… although I would support it if it did.”
Polis says all of these moves on the state level underline the urgency of federal action. Others agree and have focused on passing the bipartisan Dream Act as a sort bridge or starter immigration legislation.
The Dream Act sets up provisions through which qualifying undocumented youth would be eligible for a six-year path to citizenship that would require applicants to complete a college degree or two years of military service. Supporters of the act saw hope in remarks on immigration reform made by Pres. Obama in July.
“We should stop punishing innocent young people for the actions of their parents… The Dream Act would do this, and that’s why I supported this bill as a state legislator and as a U.S. senator and why I continue to support it as president.”
But Polis, who has been an outspoken proponent of federal immigration reform and who in May landed a spot on the House Judiciary Committee, which would likely play a large part in drafting and pushing any coming immigration legislation, believes the Dream Act is no substitute for comprehensive immigration reform.
He told the Colorado Independent that the Dream Act would clearly help “a lot of kids who are de facto Americans,” but he added that the American people have signaled that the time for go-slow or incremental approaches to immigration policy reform has long passed.
“I strongly support the Dream Act, and if it can pass alone it’s certainly a good thing, but in no way, shape or form does it fix our broken immigration system.”
Polis said Congress can and should begin working on immigration policy this fall.
“The people of this country on the right, the left and in the middle are demanding congressional action. I think there’s more public will than ever to act now to replace our broken immigration system with one that works– one that enforces our laws and rules, maintains border security, makes sure that people’s [resident status] is verified before they can work and eliminates the ability of people to work here illegally.
“So again, if all Congress can do is pass the Dream Act that’s a good thing but it’s not what people are crying out for. ”
Read interviews conducted by the Colorado Independent with young undocumented people in Colorado, who shared their stories and their thoughts on immigration reform.
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Additional writing and reporting by John Tomasic
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Polis: SB 1070 ruling just another sign feds must act
Colorado Democratic Congressman Jared Polis Wednesday lauded the decision of U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton to block sections of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, S.B. 1070, which will go into effect Thursday. Polis said the ruling “protected the Constitution” but he also hailed it for spotlighting the pressing need for a federal solution to the national illegal immigration problem, which has festered for decades and become a source of intolerance and demagoguery.
“With today’s injunction against the Arizona law, it is now more clear than ever that immigration is a federal responsibility,” Polis wrote in a release. “I applaud Judge Bolton and the Obama administration for defending our constitution. The people of Arizona and our country demand that Congress take action to replace our broken immigration system with one that works. This judgment underscores the need for Congressional action. Democrats and Republicans need to quit playing politics with this issue; it’s too important.”
Polis, for one, has committed more than words to the effort. He has made the issue a centerpiece of his efforts in Washington from the time he took office in 2008. He is now a member of the House Judiciary panel that is likely to lead on immigration legislation, which the Arizona law may force to the floor despite election-year campaign calculations and the political hangover from the healthcare-reform war.
Polis today argued, as he has done in the past, that now is exactly the right time for immigration reform, as state lawmakers feel increasing pressure to take up local legislative solutions that won’t solve the problem and may well make matters worse.
The Obama administration sued Arizona over SB 1070, seeing it as an overreaction to borderland crime and a recession economy that puts the onus on local police to enforce immigration laws, a move that may well strain community relations, exacerbate racial profiling and violate rights. The justice department argues SB 1070 tramples on federal laws already on the books, which makes it illegal. In her ruling today, Bolton agreed.
Last October, Polis railed against a federal program known as 287(g), which granted broad immigration enforcement powers to local law enforcement agencies. He said the program had resulted in “sweeps of terror.” His comments effectively previewed much of the complaints about SB 1070.
“287(g) scares victims and witnesses of crimes to avoid contacting police for fear of being mistreated. It invites exploitation by [criminals] who know that they won’t be reported [by Latino victims] to police, because the law combines contradictory duties into the same police force,” he said.
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Sources: King numbers on Muslim family reunification way off
At a pro-Arizona anti-illegal immigration rally in Loveland, Colorado, Saturday, firebrand conservative Iowa Congressman Steve King, responding to a question from the audience, said he wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama was working to bring Muslims into the country. He suggested that if it were happening, the Muslim immigrants were likely relying on family reunification visas, on which he said, they could bring hundreds of family and friends into the country.
“I keep reading that Obama keeps bringing small quantities of Muslims into this country. Why can’t Congress stop that?” asked the audience member.
“You know I don’t know what the basis of that. I wouldn’t be surprised that there was a real factual basis,” said King. “I know that the immigration we have going on there are a number of ways that people come into the country. Family reunification is one of them. And we calculated if one person uses family reunification they could bring in 357 people and then we ran out of room on the spreadsheet.”
The family reunification program, on the books since the Immigration and Nationality Act passed in 1965, allows for U.S. citizens over the age of 21 to petition to have their spouse, parents and children under 21 enter the United States and become “lawful permanent residents.” The program also provides siblings preferential status when they apply for residency.
Sociologist and demographer Karen Woodrow-Lafield, a researcher at the Maryland Population Research Center who spoke to Congress in 2006 on the subject of chain migration, authored a study that explored family reunification immigration told the Colorado independent that King’s numbers were “very speculative.” In regard to his claim that each immigrant could bring in 357 people, she said it was “unlikely.”
“The numbers are simply not going to be that large. Obviously there is some multiplication from the initial immigrant, but the numbers are not on that order of magnitude. None of the researchers who have addressed this subject empirically have found anything like 300,” she laughed.
She said that further research needs to be done, but pointed to a study conducted by Bin Yu, which incorporated not simply individuals brought over as part of the family but also their children. She said that that the average number was 4.3 immigrants; 2.1 sponsored individuals; and 2.2 second-generation immigrants. In other words, not quite nine people, and she cautioned that those numbers were spread over decades.
Tim Counts, public affairs officer at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he was unaware of any metric that extrapolated out the way King described.
King also told the Loveland audience in response to the questioner that the U.S. hosts Islamic religious workers, “in some cases from specific countries,” who held fraudulent visas. In 2007 significant fraud was found in the system that allowed religious workers to come into the country, according to reporting by USA today. Regulations and guidelines have since been put in place to curtail fraudulent visas and sponsorships.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I keep reading that Obama keeps bringing small quantities of Muslims into this country. Why can’t Congress stop that?
KING: You know, I don’t know what the basis of that. I wouldn’t be surprised that there was a real factual basis. I know that the immigration we have going on, there are a number of ways that people come into the country. Family reunification is one of them. And we calculated if one person uses family reunification, they could bring in 357 people and then we ran out of room on the spreadsheet.
There was a case in Germany were they took 150 Turkish men, they came in to do work that Germans wouldn’t do– 1970. And by the year 2000, there were 250 of them there, not one had assimilated into the broader society. One young German girl had married into the enclave. That is kind of what is going on in this country. I think that it is a legitimate parallel.
Also we have religious workers visas and we have found in some of the cases, where we have Islamic religious workers, in some of the cases from specific countries, everyone of them was fraudulent. And we have turned up the pressure on that. I don’t know how much I can do with this White House. We get run over by a truck every day. I appreciate you making the point. I will try to watch it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.
Tancredo celebrates Arizona for outlawing multicultural education programs
At a pro-Arizona event in Loveland, Colorado, Saturday, anti-illegal immigration warrior and former Congressman Tom Tancredo rallied the crowd by talking about not just Arizona’s controversial SB 1070, but about that state’s suite of new immigration laws. One of those is a new e-verify law that seeks to guard against undocumented-worker hiring. Another, highly touted by Tancredo, outlaws multicultural school programs, a popular bugbear among right-wing cultural warriors, who have argued that in emphasizing the distinct ethnic cultures and histories of Americans, the programs divide the country and discourage assimilation into the mainstream.
In his comments Saturday, Tancredo suggested multicultural educational programs teach students allegiance to “something other” than the American flag and the United States. He said that, although SB 1070– the law in Arizona that gives local police authority to investigate citizenship status– has gained much media attention for fears it will promote racial profiling, the bill outlawing mutlicultural programs is really more significant for its likely long term effects.
Drawing on Pres. John Kennedy’s famous speech in Berlin during the cold war, in which he called himself a Berliner, Tancredo said millions of Americans are likewise Arizonans today because they support the values “under siege” in Arizona from illegal immigration and from the politics that oppose Arizona’s new controversial laws.
It’s not just 1070 they got accomplished. I mean This is incredible stuff guys, no one talks about this but it’s amazing. Not only did they pass 1070, they passed a mandated e-verify for every private employer in the state of Arizona… the response, they got so many people going back to Mexico that the president of Mexico complained and said… build a fence! — He didn’t say that [laughter].
But it’s amazing because that’s the response of just one thing… then of course 1070– but then after that they passed a law, no one seems to know about this but it’s almost as important in my point of view than 1070 because it says… in the state of Arizona it’s against the law to teach the overthrow of the United States of America and you can also not go out and create these mutli-cultural little hangouts essentially that are school buildings called school buildings that teach children to owe their allegiance to something else beside that flag or this country. You can’t do that anymore in Arizona. I mean this is great stuff guys, great stuff.
So if you can… say you support them down there… It matters. They do feel under siege. They think, you know, ‘My gosh the whole world is against them.’ No the whole world is for you really. Only people who support illegal activity. Ignore the fact tha we habve things called borders and they should mean something and something called citizenship and it should mean something only people who despise those ideas– like the guy who’s in the White House today– only people like that are opposed to it.
[...]
You know, I keep thinking: Why doesn’t someone just put the damn bill on a teleprompter so Obama can read it. [laughter]
Multi-cultural education programs have been touted by education scholars for enriching instruction on the fabric of American life as a exceptional almost wholly immigrant society. The instruction also is celebrated for boosting the investment of minority students in their education.
The undocumented-worker monitoring system known as e-verify has been celebrated as a new way forward in bringing employers into the fight against illegal immigration but it has also been criticized as more flashy than effective. In test trials it has misidentified documented workers as undocumented and it has failed to identify undocumented workers angling to beat the system.
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King doubles down on Obama as racist, mocks Gardner as spineless
Iowa Congressman Steve King came to Colorado this weekend and, in appearances on the ground and on the radio, rallied support for Arizona’s controversial immigration laws and reinforced an argument he made earlier in the week that President Obama is a racist. At a small gathering in Loveland on Saturday, he said Obama had placed race at the center of the debate over immigration as a way to invalidate Arizona’s new laws.
“I’m sorry it’s true. The President did bring race into this,” he said, referring in part to his opinion, articulated on the G. Gordon Liddy radio show last Monday, that Obama sees things through a racial lens and that the president advances the rights of black Americans at the expense of white Americans.
King suggested that Obama likewise saw Arizona’s SB 1070 as a matter of Latino Americans versus white Americans when, King argued, SB 1070 is aimed merely at enforcing present immigration laws that he said the federal government had failed to enforce. He said Obama had chosen to embrace arguments that suggested the law had legalized racial profiling and that, based on that assumption, had instructed Attorney General Eric Holder to find a way to invalidate the law.
King said he wanted to get the bottom of the administration’s targeting of SB1070.
“I did a FOIA [a Freedom of Information Act request],” he said. “I want not just the draft of [Holder's complaint] but also the emails all around it, with the ACLU and SEIU and all those other left-wing organizations. I believe we’ll see that the justice department simply copied language from the ACLU…”
The discussion at the community center in Loveland, where roughly 50 elderly tea party-leaning voters gathered in the blazing sun, seemed designed to answer King critics in general but also to indirectly taunt Fourth District Congressional candidate Cory Gardner in particular. Indeed, King with his friend, former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, poked fun at Gardner on the Peter Boyles Denver talk radio show the day before.
Gardner canceled an event scheduled with King for Saturday after the national media seized on King’s comments on the Liddy show. King told media outlets that Gardner had “caved” at the first sign of media pressure and that Gardner wasn’t the kind of person King would want “guarding his back.” King told the crowd Saturday that the organizers of the Loveland event had salvaged a bungled situation. He said he was from a pork packing district in Iowa and that the organizers had made a “silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
On Boyles’ KHOW radio show Friday morning (listen here), King, Tancredo and Boyles took turns mocking Gardner and the Northern Colorado Tea Party for dis-inviting King to their weekend events.
“The tea party says this Congress, these Congressmen all have to get a spine, but the first sign anybody brings up their verbal guns, they didn’t just go down into a foxhole, they ran for the hills,” said King.
King said he heard Gardner canceled appearances with him only through the media, that Gardner called him 12 hours ater the news broke and never said he disagreed with anything King said.
The news around the exchange suggests Gardner knew little about King and his reputation for outspoken even incendiary conservative views.
A King staffer told the Colorado Independent that King was asked by other members of Congress to appear with Gardner, that staffers on the campaigns had “certainly been involved” in the planning, but that King and Gardner had never talked until after Gardner canceled the event in Hudson. The Fourth District race in Colorado is one of the major swing races in the country. Gardner is running against Democratic incumbent Betsy Markey, who defeated arch social conservative Marilyn Musgrave in 2008.
“I don’t get this Cory Gardner at all,” said talk show host Boyles on Friday. “[He] cancels [King] without even the courtesy of a phone call.”
“Pussies is the correct word I think we’re looking for here, and a bunch of punk-ass that think they’re going to run for [office] and make a difference,” Boyles said.
Boyles, King and Tancredo called the Gardner campaign on the air to ask Gardner if he wanted to come to the Loveland event.
“I’m sure Cory would love to show up and meet the guys,” Boyles said.
“I still hope that Cory Gardner wins the general election, but I’m telling you, I hope that when he wins this thing, I hope he shows more spine in Congress than he does in this particular case,” Tancredo said.
A general lack of spine among office holders was repeatedly lamented at the Loveland event Saturday.
“We need more lawmakers [like King]… who say what they mean and mean what they say” said the speaker introducing King.
“We need Constitutional lawmakers with a spine,” said King at the beginning of his remarks.
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Hat tip to Bob Moore for Boyles radio quotes.
[Photos of King (L) and Tancredo (R) Colorado independent]
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Maes reiterates support for Arizona-style immigration law
Dan Maes this week reiterated his stand on immigration, saying that if a bill similar to SB 1070, the one recently passed in Arizona, came before him as governor, he would sign it.
“We have a lot of laws that no one is enforcing. If we just enforced the laws we already have, we would be in a lot better shape,” he said. “[Current Governor Bill] Ritter and [Democratic gubernatorial nominee John] Hickenlooper aren’t going to do it. I will. If we want an Arizona law, I would sign it in a minute.”
Maes said the Arizona law is about more than immigration. “It’s not just about immigration. It is about states’ rights. [Arizona Governor Jan Brewer] exercised her rights to solve a problem. Good for her. We need to do more of that.”
He said the federal government should do a better job of managing immigration and managing the country’s borders.
“I’ll take care of Colorado’s borders,” he said.
Traveling around Colorado campaigning for Governor, the Evergreen resident said he has met with lots of farmers who rely on Mexican labor to bring the crops in.
“We need people to pick peaches and cantaloupe, so we have to have an efficient system to bring in those laborers, and then we just need to make sure they go home when they are done.”
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VIDEO: Romanoff on MSNBC says he’s a progressive who will enforce immigration laws
Former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who is running in the Democratic primary against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC Monday. Matthews suggested the Romanoff victory here in the state assembly delegate voting Saturday reflected the anti-incumbent anti-Washington primary and special election victories earlier in the month, even though Romanoff was long predicted to win here.
“Are you an outsider?” Matthews asked. “We’re trying to figure this out?”
“I’m outside of Washington. I don’t have a lot of experience cutting deals with drug companies or insurance companies to protect their profits or big Wall Street banks.”
Matthews asked Romanoff whether he was a progressive. “I am,” replied Romanoff. “I’m the only candidate in this race who is not taking any money from special interest groups. I won’t take it after my nomination.”
Romanoff said he would have voted for the ‘cramdown’ amendment last year, pushed harder for a public option in health-care reform and also voted for the Brown-Kaufman amendment in the financial regulation bill, which failed 61-33.
Matthews turned to immigration enforcement for employers.
“Will you vote for a document that cannot be forged, cannot be faked? It has to be the person who is standing there.”
“Yes,” replied Romanoff.
Matthews: “OK So you’re for a biometric — you’re for an — you’re the first Democrat I’ve heard since Ted Kennedy, who has passed away, who’s honestly said to me they’re for outlawing illegal immigration.”
Romanoff: “I don’t know anybody who’s–”
Matthews: “Enforcement–”
Romanoff: “Well, I don’t know anybody who is in favor of illegal immigration. The problem is–”
Matthews: “Well, they are, because they won’t do anything on enforcement. But you’ve said so. We’ll see what kind of noise you take.”
Matthews concluded the show, “I completely agree with your views so far.”
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Romanoff has taken heat for leading a special legislative session in 2006 as Speaker of the House that required proof of citizenship in the form of government-issued identification to receive certain state benefits in Colorado. The controversial law has been assailed as a precursor to Arizona’s tough SB 1070 and agencies here reported spending millions more checking identification after the law passed than they did in providing benefits before it passed. Romanoff celebrated the law as a national model for immigration legislation in 2006. He is for comprehensive federal immigration reform and told the Colorado independent this week that the 2006 law was a stop gap measure on an issue that requires national policy reform.
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Anti-illegal immigration ALIPAC breaks with Tancredo over neo-Nazi organizer
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is openly squabbling with former Colorado Congressman and anti-illegal immigration warrior Tom Tancredo over white-power associations ALIPAC says are tainting efforts to organize rallies in support of Arizona’s tough new immigration law.
Gheen and Tancredo
ALIPAC sent out a newsletter to supporters this week pulling out of a June 5 rally in Phoenix. The group’s director William Gheen, who has battled accusations of racist associations in the past, explained that he had raised concerns with Tancredo about event organizer Dan Smeriglio, an activist with long unabashed ties to “skin heads and Nazis,” as Gheen put it. Gheen said Tancredo couldn’t be persuaded that Smeriglio’s associations posed a problem, so Gheen took the conversation to the public and announced ALIPAC would encourage its national network of supporters not to attend any June rallies in Arizona.
Tancredo told Denver’s Westword Wednesday that Smeriglio seemed like a “nice kid” merely looking for a speaker for the event and so Tancredo agreed. Tancredo said the flap with Gheen was merely personal, that Gheen was retaliating for Tancredo criticizing Gheen’s attack on South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
Gheen gave a speech earlier this month calling on Graham to come out of the closet and admit his homosexuality. Tancredo said he told Gheen in advance of that speech that it would be a “bullshit” smear and that Gheen should stay focused on immigration policy. Tancredo later asked Gheen to take him off his mailing list, which he said made Gheen go “balisitic.” “That’s what this is all about.”
A May 19 itemized email from ALIPAC details Gheen’s side of the controversy:
Item 2:
Congressman Tom Tancredo is making a huge mistake that can have terrible consequences for our candidates, legislation, and citizen activists fighting against illegal immigration in Arizona and across America…
With the illegal alien supporting La Raza groups throwing the race card at Arizona and all of us speaking out against illegal immigration, it is a big mistake to proceed with a June 5th event in Phoenix, AZ where the ADL, SPLC, National Council of La Raza, and many others have screen shots [a Facebook page linking Smeriglio to skin head and neo nazi music pdf here]…
If you use your mouse wheel to look at page 2 of this screen shot you will see that the June 5th rally organizer supported by Tom Tancredo lists the Swedish Neo Nazi rock group SAGA as his favorite band on the Facebook page being used to organize the June 5th event. There’s lots more evidence than this strong piece if you want to see it.
Tom Tancredo is making a terrible mistake trying to lead people into an event and behind his organizer Dan Smeriglio when Smeriglio has been solidly linked with skinheads and Neo Nazis.
Leading Americans, candidates, groups, and legislators into Phoenix with an organizer with links to Neo Nazis is a disaster in motion and it is very disappointing that Congressman Tom Tancredo would make and even defend such mistakes.
Item 3:
One common misconception we hear is that people feel you can’t control skinheads showing up at events and that fringe elements always show up.
This is not a case of radical groups showing up at events. This is a case of the main organizer for the June 5th rally in Phoenix being documented by both sides of this debate with distinct connections to Neo Nazis and being backed up by retired Congressman Tom Tancredo despite conclusive evidence of Neo Nazi associations.
Item 4:
“How did Dan Smeriglio end up running the June 5th event when ALIPAC had foreknowledge of existing credibility and performance problems?”
To that, we would encourage you to ask Congressman Tom Tancredo because we would have never put Smeriglio in that position based off of our recent and extensive experiences with him. We were discussing going to Arizona in a large coalition and several organizations told us they wanted an event in late June or early July.
The next thing we know, Congressman Tom Tancredo and Dan Smeriglio announce the launch of the June 5th rally without consulting any of the other leaders that were discussing such plans. Smeriglio told us that he had permits and Tancredo’s full backing for the 5th.
Gheen wrote to the Colorado Independent last month to contest a 2008 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center tying ALIPAC to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which has been designated a hate group by the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. Gheen said the connection between the two groups is and has been nonexistent and that the SPLC has smeared his group with its accusations.
“I challenge you to provide one shred of evidence that that is true,” he wrote to the Independent. “This is what is happening, they tell a lie, you repeat the lie to create a layer, and then people think it is legitimate. We are not supported by FAIR and we do not acknowledge FAIR as a hate group as we feel such titles should be reserved for groups that advocate violence based on race.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center did not return calls for comment on the 2008 report and its allegations.