In another sign of the heightened tensions surrounding illegal immigration in Arizona, a far-right anti-immigration group is stoking fears of violent Mexicans out to murder white people — and invoking hard-line sheriff Joe Arpaio — in a bid to raise money. The group’s leader tells TPMmuckraker that in the wake of Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, “the irresistible force of globalism and the Mexican invasion is about to meet the immovable object of American sovereignty.”
A fundraising flyer sent this month by the American Border Patrol — a group of anti-immigration advocates who conduct airplane missions to monitor the Arizona-Mexico border — leads with an incendiary quote attributed to Jose Angel Gutierrez, the founder of La Raza: “We have got to eliminate the gringo. And what I mean is, if worse comes to worst, we have got to kill him.” Above the quote is a picture of an immigrants rights protest, including a prominent banner declaring: “We Are Indigenous, The Only Owners Of This Continent.” (See the flyer here.)
The flyer, obtained by TPMmuckraker, goes on to picture Arpaio, alongside the quote:
“My message to the illegals is this: Stay out of Maricopa County.” And it asks: “Do you stand with the illegals pictured on back, or Sheriff Joe Arpaio?”
The Maricopa County lawman has a reputation for using harsh tactics to combat illegal immigration, and has welcomed the new Arizona law. The flyer asks recipients to sign a letter of support for Arpaio — who is being sued by civil-rights groups and investigated by the U.S. Justice Department — before urging them to send money to ABP.
The flyer was sent on ABP’s behalf by Eberle Associates, a conservative political consulting firm based in the Washington D.C. area, which has ties to the right-wing website GOPUSA.com, and which, according to its website, has done work for such causes as the conservative American Civil Rights Union and the James Watt Legal Defense Fund.
Glenn Spencer, ABP’s leader, told TPMmuckraker that Arpaio was not aware of the mailing. And Spencer went on to warn that liberal immigration rights advocates would soon try to undermine Arizona’s new law, invoking the response to a previous effort to crack down on illegal immigration — California’s Proposition 187, passed in 1994. “Proposition 187 was an attempt to stop the invasion and it was met with an enormous force from the political left,” he said. “The reaction to [the Arizona law] in the coming days and weeks will validate my position.”
But Spencer suggested the effort will fail. “The irresistible force of globalism and the Mexican invasion is about to meet the immovable object of American sovereignty,” he said.
