The Southern Poverty Law Center was one of the first media sources to reveal the close connection which Wade Michael Page, the alleged killer of six innocent people at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, maintained with white supremacist hate groups. The SPLC now reports that the racist radical right has "erupted" with an outpouring of sympathy, not for the South Asian victims, but for their skinhead "brother", Page himself.
The SPLC quoted one of the most vicious of all the comments, by Alex Linder, who operates the racist website Vanguard News Network, as follows:
"You don't belong here in the country my ancestors fought to found, and deeded to me and mine, their posterity. Even if you came here legally, and even if you haven't done anything wrong personally. Go home, Sikhs. Go home to India where you belong. This is not your country. It belongs to white men."
Another white supremacist, Larry Loper, head of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Hammerskins, a violent skinhead group, announced on Facebook that "I could care less though for those injured and wounded other than Wade."
The SPLC has also reported that in 2011, there were more than a thousand active hate groups in America. Its website has a state by state breakdown. Even when there is no direct connection between any given hate group and any particular politician, how much of the white supremacist agenda is being carried out, inadvertently or otherwise, by Republican politicians who, in Pennsylvania and other states, are denying Latino and African-American US citizens the right to vote through discriminatory voter ID laws and other restrictions specifically tailored to keep racial minorities away from the polls?
And how much of this agenda of hate is the Democratic administration of President Obama aiding and abetting though its deportation quota of 400,000 per year, its "Secure Communities", and its immigration detention gulag? How "secure" did "Secure Communities" make the community of Oak Creek, Wisconsin?
And how much is the whites only ideology of these hate groups behind the immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama and other states which are trying to create a reign of terror in order to drive Latino and other minority immigrants (and US citizens) out entirely (unless they "self-deport", to quote Mitt Romney)?
Who really speaks for America on immigration? The voices of reason and tolerance coming from Latino and other pro-immigrant groups? Or the voices of Alex Linder, Larry Loper and the Hammerskins?
Are not the DREAMERS, though neither born in America nor possessing legal status here, the real Americans - more than Sheriff Joe Arpaio, more than Kris Kobach, more than the state governors who have signed anti-immigrant hate laws such as Arizona's Jan Brewer and South Carolina's Nikki Haley (ironically, of Sikh parentage herself)?
The greatest tribute to the Oak Creek victims would be for both parties to join in putting an end to the culture of hate by enacting genuine immigration reform. How many more Oak Creek massacres will there be before this happens?
Aug 07, 2012
White Supremacist Hate Destroys The Lives Of Six Innocent People At A Sikh Temple. Is It Also Destroying America's Hopes For A Fair Immigration System?
What I suggested in my comment on Monday August 6, namely that the mass shooting last Sunday at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin had all the earmarks of a hate crime inspired by white racism against South Asians (possibly mistaken for Muslims) has now been confirmed by reliable newspaper reports. A story in the Tuesday, August 7 Washington Post provides full details about the more than decade-long association between the alleged killer, Wade Michael Page, and white supremacist rock bands. These have been decribed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an "underworld of white supremacist music".
The WP story quotes Mark Potok of the SPLC as saying that Page was not a fringe player, but was well known on the scene and played in some of the best known bands.
How could someone with this background, which the SPLC had been tracking since 2000 according to the WP, been able to obtain guns, including, allegedly, a semi-automatic weapon? But this aspect of America's dark side is a separate issue. The main question for immigrants and immigrant rights advocates now is: how much influence do white supremacist hate groups have over attitudes toward immigration and immigration policy today?
Direct influence by white supremacist hate groups over immigration policy no doubt exists. The SPLC has been tracking the activities of these groups and their connections with various political figures, and I refer to its website for further details. Every immigration advocate should become familiar with them. But what is more insidious is the way in which the white supremacist movement may be poisoning the atmosphere for immigration policy decisions among the general public and its elected representatives.
Leaving aside the issue of America's estimated 12 million or so unauthorized immigrants, and focusing on the legal immigration side, skilled, well educated IT professionals with legal visas from countries such as India and China are being made scapegoats for America's economic and other problems just as much as, or even more than, janitors, busboys or farm workers who come from Mexico without permission.
What could possibly have been going on in the minds of our Senators and Representatives in Congress when they authorized stratospherically high H-1B and L-1 filing fees for certain companies which employ significant numbers of H-1B and L-1 workers? What kind of response to public ignorance and prejudice might have led to the notorious USCIS memo relating to off site H-1B workers in 2010?
Even more urgently, what kind of negative public attitudes may have influenced the Faustian bargain made by the sponsors of HR 3012, which might give some relief on immigrant visa waiting periods to applicants from India and China, but at the risk of destroying the entire H-1B system? Why are there so many RFE's and denials for clearly meritorious professional worker petitions?
Up to now, few people have drawn any connection between these devolpments and the influence of certain rock bands and their followers on public attitudes toward immigration. Maybe it is now time to broaden our thinking.
About The Author
Roger Algase is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He has been practicing business immigration law in New York City for more than 20 years.
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