According to a comprehensive new report issued last month by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, what they term the “nativist establishment,” the collection of national and local institutions, think tanks, political action committees and grassroots coalitions working to promote anti-immigrant legislation and public sentiment in this country, has recently experienced a dramatic downswing in the number of active organizations, as well as the size and financial support of those continuing to operate.
In this report, IREHR reveals that during the height of the nativist establishment in 2007-2008, there were 400 active anti-immigrant groups operating in this country, supported by over 1.2 million individuals. By 2010, this number had dropped to 310, and as of 2011 there were only 210 such organizations still active.
Emblematic of the shift within the larger nativist establishment, perhaps the most prominent nativist organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform experienced a 58 percent drop in membership from 45,000 in 2007 to 18,484 in 2011. FAIR has been particularly influential in pushing forward trendsetting anti-immigrant legislation, including both Prop 200 and SB 1070 in Arizona.
Another organization, extremely popular four years ago that has now become almost negligible is the Minutemen Project. The number of Minutemen chapters in the U.S. dropped from 115 in 2010 to 53 in 2011, and its number of donors dropped from 115,000 to just 2,200.
The IREHR report details several possible causes for the recent decline of the nativist establishment. First, many of these groups have suffered negative publicity over the past several years. This has been the case with the Minutemen. After a local chapter leader in Southern Arizona broke into an Arivaca home, killing a Latino man and his nine year old daughter, the national organization was permanently tarnished.
Another reason that the nativist establishment may be on the downturn could be due to the economic recession and the resulting lack of funding going to these groups.
However, IREHR posits one additional, and more foreboding reason that the quantity, membership and financial support of anti-immigrant groups is on the decline. In some ways this establishment may have become a victim of its own success, now that once radically reactionary views and propositions have now bled into the mainstream. Former leaders in organizations like FAIR and the Minuteman Project are now becoming leaders within more mainstream political movements, such as the Tea Party. IREHR warns that as the nativist movement becomes repositioned within multi-issue organizations and political parties, it becomes much harder for human rights groups to counteract.
You can read the IREHR report in its entirety on the organization's website here.
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