Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) - Washington, DC

One of the country's best-established anti-immigration groups in the U.S., the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), based in Washington, DC, was declared a "hate group" in December 2007 by SPLC because of its affiliations with racist and white separatist organizations.

FAIR was created by John Tanton, considered the founding father of the U.S. anti-immigration movement. Tanton also founded NumbersUSA (see below). Called "The Puppeteer" by the SPLC, Tanton had founded or funded a number of anti-immigration organizations.

Dan Stein, the group's president, has warned that certain immigrant groups are engaged in "competitive breeding" aimed at diminishing White power. Rick Oltman, FAIR's western representative, has spoken before and worked with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.

"The Council of Conservative Citizens, which ‘oppose[s] all efforts to mix the races of mankind,' is the successor organization to the White Citizens Council, whose membership terrorized African Americans attempting to register to vote or enroll in public schools following Brown vs. Board of Education," wrote Henry Fernandez of the Center for American Progress.

Another FAIR operative working for Stein is Joe Turner, who has been hired by FAIR to succeed Oltman. When he led an anti-immigration group in California called Save Our State, skinheads and neo-Nazis joined his street protests.

Overall, FAIR blames immigrants for crime, poverty, disease, urban sprawl, and increasing racial tensions in America and calls for a drastic cut in the numbers of those allowed to immigrate. In radio and TV ads, it attacked Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI), saying Abraham's immigration reform proposal could "make it easier for [Arab] terrorists like Osama bin Laden to export their way of terror to any street in America." Print ads featured a photograph of Senator Abraham - an Arab American - next to a photo of Bin Laden.

FAIR's ads were condemned across the country and caused former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-WY) to resign from FAIR's advisory board. Another example of FAIR's racist views is reflected in a comment made by Garrett Hardin, a FAIR board member, who argued that aiding starving Africans is counterproductive and will only "encourage population growth."

FAIR has also created two affiliate organizations: Choose Black America (for African Americans) and You Don't Speak for Me (for Hispanic Americans).