///Rapid Response 09/09/08
Anti-Immigrant Lobbying

The following is an action alert from the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program (CWS/IRP). If you would like to receive future action alerts from CWS/IRP you can sign up for them at www.capwiz.com/churchworld/mlm/signup/.

Call Congress today to counter anti-immigrant lobbyists

Background

This week (September 8-11, 2008), the anti-immigration Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is bringing thousands of people to Washington, D.C., to push Congress towards an agenda of more raids, deportations, and inhumane detention; fewer opportunities for legal immigration, and decreased resources for immigrants and refugees.

Organized by John Tanton, the founder of Numbers USA, the Center for Immigration Studies and other anti-immigrant groups, FAIR is a lobbyist group opposed to all immigration. It advocates, in its own words, "to set legal immigration at the lowest feasible levels."

FAIR ignores the dire need of refugees and asylum seekers for protection, the importance of family unity, and the high U.S. demand for immigrant workers of all skill levels. FAIR opposes family unity policies for immigrants, wants to criminalize providing humanitarian aid to undocumented persons, and claims responsibility for the failure of the DREAM Act and other pro-immigrant bills.

Quotes from FAIR spokespersons:< /br> "The brown toxic cloud strangling Los Angeles never lifts and grows thicker with every immigrant added ... When you import that much crime, illiteracy, multiple languages and disease, Americans pick up stakes and move away." - Radio talk show host and FAIR presenter Doug McIntyre at the Fall 2005 FAIR Director's Meeting.

"They defend themselves from the illegal alien savages who kill their livestock, slit their watchdogs' throats, burglarize their homes and threaten the physical safety of their loved ones."
Barbara Coe, May 21, 2000. National Border Patrol Council.