- WASHINGTON - After the
collapse of the Senate amnesty bill in 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) joined with the National Council of La Raza and others to launch
a campaign to smear the three largest mainstream groups making a case for
tighter enforcement and lower immigration. At the center of this campaign
was the designation of the Federation for American Immigration Reform as
a 'hate group' and the spread of that taint to Numbers USA and the Center
for Immigration Studies. The announced goal was to pressure journalists
and policymakers not to meet or speak with these organizations. Touted
as an effort to 'stop the hate,' it was a thinly disguised move to stifle
debate.
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- CIS will release a report next week examining the SPLC
and its role in this campaign. "Immigration and the SPLC: How the
Southern Poverty Law Center Invented a Smear, Served La Raza, Manipulated
the Press, and Duped its Donors," authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning
investigative journalist Jerry Kammer, will be released at a panel discussion
on Thursday, March 18, at 9:30 a.m. at the Murrow Room of the National
Press Club, 14th & F streets NW. The report will be online at www.cis.org.
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- The panel will include:
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- Jerry Kammer, author of "Immigration and the SPLC"
and Senior Research Fellow at CIS. Prior to joining CIS, he was awarded
a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his work in helping uncover the Duke Cunningham
congressional bribery scandal. He received the Robert F. Kennedy Award
for humanitarian journalism for his work in Mexico for the Arizona Republic.
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- Ken Silverstein, Washington Editor for Harper's Magazine
and author of "The Church of Morris Dees" in the November 2000
issue of the magazine.
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- Carol Swain, Professor of Political Science and Professor
of Law at Vanderbilt University and author of The New White Nationalism
in America (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and editor of Debating Immigration
(Cambridge University Press, 2007).
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- Moderator: Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of CIS.
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- RSVP for the panel to press@cis.org. For information
about the report, contact the author at gjk@cis.org.
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- ______
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- The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent
research institution which examines the impact of immigration on the United
States.
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- Contact - Jerry Kammer
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- 202-466-8185 or gjk@cis.org
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