The Sunday New York Times (4/17/11) ran a big front-page piece on John Tanton, founder of the anti-immigration organizations Federation for American Immigration Reform and Center for Immigration Studies. I guess it's positive that someone in corporate media is finally paying attention to Tanton's racism (long documented here at FAIR--1/1/93--and by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center--Winter/08), and reporter Jason DeParle does include a good deal of damning information about Tanton and some of his own racist words.

But he also manages to interview almost exclusively people currently or formerly affiliated with Tanton's groups (six of these people in all) plus a few GOP officials--none of whom have anything bad to say about the Federation, CIS or Numbers USA (another Tanton-connected group), even if they're mildly critical of Tanton himself. A single critic is quoted, Frank Sharry of the progressive immigration reform group America's Voice. The result is that the piece essentially portrays Tanton as the only problem with these anti-immigrant groups, and though they won't kick him off their boards, THEY'RE not actually racist themselves--they just roll their eyes at their racist founder and tolerate his eccentricities.

DeParle explained the trouble with critics of the groups:

Accusations of bigotry could alienate moderates the immigrant rights groups need. Allies of Dr. Tanton say their accusers are discrediting themselves with a guilt-by-association campaign that twists his ideas and projects them onto groups where, they say, his influence long ago waned.

The idea is attributed to allies of Tanton, but that's the basic framing of the entire piece. If critics were given more space, they might have been able to point out that it's not just a Tanton problem--although the fact that he remains on the board of the Federation ought to be plenty damning in itself. As the SPLC documents (3/16/10), the racism at the Federation and CIS extends far beyond Tanton, permeating the board, staff and programming. Mark Krikorian, executive director of CIS, wrote in the National Review Online (1/21/10) that

Haiti's so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.... Unlike Jamaicans and Bajans and Guadeloupeans, et al., after experiencing the worst of tropical colonial slavery, the Haitians didn’t stick around long enough to benefit from it. (Haiti became independent in 1804.). And by benefit I mean develop a local culture significantly shaped by the more-advanced civilization of the colonizers.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation, was asked by Tucker Carlson (Wall Street Journal, 10/2/97) to respond to a quote from another Federation board member, eugenicist Garrett Hardin, who had warned that "breeders" were reproducing uncontrollably "in Third World countries," and that the "less intelligent" should be discouraged from "breeding." Stein's response: "Yeah, so what? What is your problem with that? Should we be subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?"

Rachel Maddow (MSNBC, 4/29/10) recently confronted Stein with this quote and other evidence of racism at the Federation compiled by the SPLC. Stein claimed that all of the SPLC's factual allegations about his group were wrong. The next night (4/30/10), Maddow factchecked Stein's claims, demonstrating that he, in Maddow's words, "was flat-out, totally shamelessly uncomplicatedly lying."

That's the kind of reporting that needs to be done on Stein and his colleagues.

CNN host Lou Dobbs presented some big news on--wait for it--immigration last night (10/22/09):

New evidence that the American public wants action on the illegal immigration crisis in this country. A new CNN poll finds the vast majority of the American public wants illegal immigration stopped and most want illegal immigrants now in the country to leave--Lisa Sylvester with our report.

The CNN poll is odd; the main question is, "Would you like to see the number of illegal immigrants currently in this country increased, decreased, or remain the same?" 73 percent chose "decreased." They asked a follow-up to find out if people want the numbers decreased "a little," "a lot" or if they'd like to seem all of them removed immediately. Thirty-seven percent of the total sample chose the latter option; if that's what Dobbs meant by "most" people, that's just inaccurate reporting of his own network's poll.

Dobbs' reporter Lisa Sylvester uses the poll to make a bigger political point:

SYLVESTER: But Mark Krikorian with the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tougher immigration law, says if anything, these polling numbers show that comprehensive immigration reform is going to be a tough sell.

MARK KRIKORIAN: Clearly, it's not happening any time soon and these poll results really just underline that reality.

SYLVESTER: But President Obama still is insisting and committed to signing a comprehensive immigration bill.

The idea that responses to this poll reveal people's feelings towards "reform" is a giant leap, since the CNN poll does not seem to have asked about that. Other polls have, though, like an April 9 ABC/Washington Post survey:

Would you support or oppose a program giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements?

Support: 61 percent

Oppose: 31 percent

A CBS/New York Times poll (4/22-26/09) gave three options for dealing with undocumented immigrants:

Stay, Apply for Citizenship: 44 percent

Stay as Guest Workers: 21 percent

Leave: 30 percent

Since all three groups could describe themselves as wanting to see illegal immigration "decreased," there's no reason to believe that CNN's poll tells us much of anything about the immigration debate. It does, however, give Lou Dobbs something to talk about.