All this represents a high-water mark in the influence of the "nativist lobby" funded by John Taton.

[pampango]

Now, governors and legislators in 23 other states are considering following Arizona's lead in directing local police to act as immigration officers. And politicians in several states are contriving to, in effect, amend the U.S. Constitution to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents are illegal immigrants. All this represents a high-water mark in the influence of the "nativist lobby" -- a richly funded assemblage of national and local groups organized by Michigan ophthalmologist John Tanton.

The groups, which have gained respectability, include the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA. But some investigations have tied Tanton to white-supremacist ideology as well. The move to end birthright citizenship is led by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is affiliated with FAIR's legal arm. Tanton's groups are making use of economic hard times to argue that immigrants -- legal and illegal -- are stealing jobs from Americans and straining government budgets.

As immigration reform advocate Rick Swartz told me: "There's a long history in our country of demonizing ‘the other' -- Catholics by the Know-Nothings, Chinese, blacks, Jews. Americans ought to fear we're in another one of those periods now." Polls show that 60 percent of Americans support Arizona's police enforcement law but that just as many support giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

But GOP victories in 2010 will make it impossible for Congress to address the immigration problem constructively. But Republicans -- and increasingly, even moderates -- are opposed to anything smacking of "amnesty," either because they fear the wrath of nativists or because of the prospect that former illegal immigrants will vote Democratic.

http://thetandd.com/news/opinion/article_d90ce72a-4068-11e0-a35d-001cc4c03286.html

"Tanton's groups are making use of economic hard times to argue that immigrants -- legal and illegal -- are stealing jobs from Americans and straining government budgets." Sounds eerily similar to the attempts of the Koch brothers and the right to use "economic hard times" and "straining government budgets" to break public employee unions.

It is pretty amazing that the right wing can try to use the effects of an economic crisis their own policies created to further promote their policies like breaking unions and going after immigrants.