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<\/a>In this file photo, Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen discusses a SPLC federal lawsuit against the Alabama Accountability Act during a press conference in Montgomery, Ala., Monday, Aug. 19, 2013. (AP Photo\/Dave Martin)<\/p><\/div>\n
By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times<\/p>\n
One of the most prominent groups advocating for stricter immigration went to court Wednesday to demand a judge order the\u00a0Southern Poverty<\/a>\u00a0Law Center to stop labeling it a \u201chate group,\u201d accusing the self-described watchdog of running an illegal racket to silence political opponents.<\/p>\n The Center for Immigration Studies says the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s accusations that it is racist and anti-immigrant are wrong and have cost the nonprofit support and financial backing by scaring people away from doing business with the center.<\/p>\n The center brought its challenge to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by filing a civil complaint under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act against\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0President\u00a0Richard Cohen<\/a>\u00a0and Heidi Beirich, who runs the group\u2019s Hatewatch blog.<\/p>\n Mark Krikorian, the Center for Immigration Studies executive director, says his organization doesn\u2019t meet the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s definition of a hate group and the Alabama-based watchdog knows it but persists anyway \u2014 which he said was evidence of the racket.<\/p>\n \u201cSPLC<\/a>\u00a0and its leaders have every right to oppose our work on immigration, but they do not have the right to label us a hate group and suggest we are racists,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Center for Immigration Studies is fighting back against the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>smear campaign and its attempt to stifle debate through intimidation and name-calling.\u201d<\/p>\n The Center for Immigration Studies is not the only group to protest the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s profligate use of the hate tag, but it appears to be the first to mount a challenge under RICO, a law that is usually associated with the FBI\u2019s anti-mob efforts.<\/p>\n The center says the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0defines hate groups as organizations whose official statements or activities \u201cattack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Krikorian said that doesn\u2019t define his group, whose motto is \u201cpro immigrant, low immigration.\u201d In practice, he said, that means the center makes the case for \u201cfewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted.\u201d<\/p>\n The center says it doesn\u2019t think its work amounts to attacks on people but rather attempts to raise policy questions.<\/p>\n Beyond that, Mr. Krikorian said, the Supreme Court has held that being an immigrant is not an immutable characteristic, so maligning migrants wouldn\u2019t qualify as hate anyway.<\/p>\n The center\u2019s work is widely cited in the press, including in The Washington Times. It issues awards for press coverage of immigration, including, in the past, to The Times. Its analysts are regularly called to testify before Congress and have been invited to meet with top security officials in the Obama and Trump administrations.<\/p>\n The center\u2019s work also is used by independent fact-checkers such as PolitiFact.com, which in 2017 fact-checked the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s hate designation. PolitiFact concluded that most of the evidence was guilt by association.<\/p>\n Under the Trump administration, the center\u2019s profile has grown. Some former staffers have been hired for government jobs, and analysts have conducted interviews with top Homeland Security Department officials in events broadcast on C-SPAN.<\/p>\n Those interviews raised the ire of congressional Democrats. Joe Crowley, as House Democratic caucus chairman, fired off a note last year urging the chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cancel an appearance, saying the Center for Immigration Studies spread \u201cabhorrent viewpoints, including white supremacism and anti-Semitism.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Cohen<\/a>, in a statement to The Times, said the center \u201crichly deserves the hate group label\u201d and he looked forward to battling the group in court.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has a history of making racially inflammatory statements, associating with white nationalists and circulating the work of racist writers,\u201d he said. \u201cIts lawsuit is nothing more than a heavy-handed effort to try to silence us from exercising our First Amendment right to express our opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0SPLC<\/a>, in its write-up, said the center made the list in 2016 after circulating a weekly reading list that sometimes linked to \u201cwhite nationalist and antisemitic writers\u201d and by commissioning work from a former Heritage Foundation employee who the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0said had been ousted \u201cfor his embrace of racist pseudoscience.\u201d<\/p>\n Of Mr. Krikorian, the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0says: \u201cWhile capable of appearing as a sober-minded policy analyst in some settings, longtime CIS executive director Mark Krikorian\u2019s contributions to the immigration policy debate rarely rise above petulant commentary dashed with extremist statements.\u201d<\/p>\n Among other evidence, the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0lists in its 8,000-word write-up the center\u2019s support for mandatory E-Verify, the federal government\u2019s voluntary program to let businesses check the legal status of potential hires.<\/p>\n Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, spoke glowingly of E-Verify this month, but the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>cast the program in a more nefarious light, saying it was a linchpin of the \u201canti-immigrant movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps most damning for the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0is the center\u2019s association with John Tanton, whom the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0labels a racist. CIS counters that it is independent of Mr. Tanton.<\/p>\n The\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0cut its teeth on taking on the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and built a sterling reputation and a massive bank account in doing so.<\/p>\n In recent years, the group has become a major player in questions of Muslim rights and the immigration debate, and it has expanded its list of haters to include groups that may have taken politically controversial stands but had not generally been accused of racism.<\/p>\n The more expansive role also has earned it new headaches.<\/p>\n The\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0last year agreed to pay a $3.4 million settlement to a Muslim activist whom the group in 2016 listed among \u201canti-Muslim extremists.\u201d\u00a0Mr. Cohen<\/a>\u00a0issued a statement in June acknowledging his group botched that one.<\/p>\n The group has been making increasing forays into activism, which can build tension with its more long-standing role as a clearinghouse for information.<\/p>\n GuideStar, another clearinghouse for information on nonprofits, last year adopted the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s hate list and attached the label to dozens of profiles in its influential database. Among those slapped with the label was the Center for Immigration Studies.<\/p>\n After protests, GuideStar reversed itself and removed the label from all of the 46 groups it had targeted on\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s say-so.<\/p>\n GuideStar CEO Jacob Harold said it reversed course because there were \u201creasonable disagreements\u201d over the labels and because he feared for his employees\u2019 safety after he said they received threats for relying on the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s determinations.<\/p>\n AmazonSmile, a program by internet commerce giant Amazon to allow users to donate money to nonprofits, also has cited\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s designation as a reason to terminate the account for the Center for Immigration Studies, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n The center says that has cost it at least $10,000 in donations.<\/p>\n Because it doesn\u2019t meet the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u2019s definition of a hate group yet the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0uses that label online, the center said, it amounts to wire fraud in violation of RICO.<\/p>\n The center says it wants a judge to award damages and order the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0to remove the \u201chate\u201d label, and it wants the\u00a0SPLC<\/a>\u00a0to affirmatively state on its website \u201cthat CIS is not a hate group.\u201d<\/p>\n RICO has been used to settle other thorny political clashes, including by the National Organization for Women, which in the 1980s and 1990s filed civil RICO claims against pro-life activists at abortion clinics.<\/p>\n The National Organization for Women said the protesters\u2019 actions amounted to extortion and asked for triple damages allowed under RICO. Decades of litigation produced a mixed outcome.<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2019 The Washington Times, LLC.<\/p>\n