SPLC: Amnesty Advocates, Not Impartial Sources

Reporters beware: for those who thought the Southern Poverty Law Center was a neutral broker on immigration policy, they are actually pushing their own agenda in what has increasingly become a partisan policy debate. As recently as 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) found funding to start attacking immigration reformers nationwide - attacks that have now become part of their daily "to do" list. Early on, SPLC staffers justified their polemical assault by claiming they were detached and disinterested observers of the immigration debate, telling reporters the SPLC doesn't even have an immigration policy position. Now the truth is out - and it turns out they lied. Recently, the SPLC not only began litigating immigration issues, but it has taken legislative positions in favor of amnesty - joining open-borders coalitions virulently opposed to all border enforcement. Most recently, they've joined the "Immigration Reform for America" coalition - the main amnesty coalition in the U.S.

So much for claiming to be a neutral broker on the immigration issue. Even more recently, SPLC staffers have spent months culling through public archives of materials donated by FAIR and others in this movement in their attempt to smear political opponents. The SPLC ignores 99.99% of the professional and creditable material before their very eyes, all the while trying to find evidence of bias or unsavory motives in an arcane fragment here and there. To some, this open access position of the immigration reform movement is a tribute to our commitment to openness and the spirit of free inquiry. It would be interesting to know where one can go to examine the private papers of Morris Dees, Richard Cohen or old SPLC organizational files. An innocent inquiry into a few SPLC financial matters by the Montgomery Advertiser earned that paper more than a few legal threats from SPLC lawyers. Award winning reporters like Jerry Kammer and Ken Silverstein (Harpers) have published block-buster exposes on the unethical practices of the SPLC. But do they even respond?

The SPLC's revelatory behavior is leading more and more people to see the organization for what is really is - an organization out of step with the challenges facing America in the 21st Century and reduced to DaVinci Code-style "exposes" aimed at getting donations from anyone credulous enough to believe them. Beyond a cozy relationship with the liberal fringe parked at MSNBC, the SPLC's pretensions of being an arbiter of acceptable speech and thought are viewed with increasing skepticism.