‘Nativist Extremist’ Groups Decline Again
What follows is a state-by-state tally of the 33 groups that the SPLC lists as nativist extremist groups active in 2013.
The movement of “nativist extremist” groups — anti-immigration organizations that go beyond mere advocacy to confront suspected undocumented immigrants and those who hire or help them — reached its vitriolic peak in 2010, when it counted some 319 groups. Since then, the movement has declined rapidly, a trend that continued in 2013, when there were just 33 of the organizations.
The decline, like that seen in earlier years, was due to movement infighting, the adoption of many of the movement’s goals by state legislatures like those of Arizona and Alabama, and criminal scandals. The worst of those scandals was the 2011 Arizona murder of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter by a group led by Shawna Forde, the head of Minuteman American Defense who now sits on death row. But in 2013, another important leader, Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, was arrested on charges of molesting several young children.
The movement last year also lost one of its shrillest voices with the August death of Barbara Coe, the racist founder and longtime leader of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which was instrumental in passing 1994’s anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in California, although the measure was killed later. Coe, who was also a member of the segregationist Council of Conservative Citizens and a one-time board member of the border-patrolling Minuteman Project, was known for baseless rants about immigrants like this 2005 keeper: “We are suffering robbery, rape and murder of law-abiding citizens at the hands of illegal barbarians who are cutting off the heads and appendages of blind, white, disabled gringos.”
Most of the patrolling of the borders carried out by the Minutemen and related groups has now ended, but a border vigilante who identified himself as a “militia Minuteman” was arrested last August after pointing a military-style assault rifle at a sheriff’s deputy during a desert confrontation. In south Texas, meanwhile, the Texas Border Volunteers continued to carry out armed patrols of the Mexican border.
What follows is a list of nativist extremist groups active in 2013:
ARIZONA (3)
American Freedom Riders
Phoenix
Arizona Border Recon
Phoenix
Mohave County Residents for Constitutional Rights Arizona
Mohave County
CALIFORNIA (3)
Long Beach Minuteman Project
Long Beach
Minuteman Project (MMP)
Laguna Hills
WE THE PEOPLE California’s Crusader
Victorville
FLORIDA (2)
Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, Inc.
Pompano Beach
Report Illegals
Pompano Beach
GEORGIA (1)
The Dustin Inman Society
Marietta
MARYLAND (15)
Help Save Maryland
Anne Arundel County
Baltimore
Baltimore County
Calvert County
Caroline County
Carroll County
Frederick County
Harford County
Howard County
Montgomery County
Prince George’s County
Queen Anne’s County
Rockville
St. Mary’s County
Talbot County
MINNESOTA (1)
Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform
Hanska
NEW JERSEY (2)
New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control
Carlstadt
United Patriots of America
Lindenhurst
NORTH CAROLINA (2)
Federal Immigration Reform & Enforcement (FIRE) Coalition
Statewide
North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement
Wade
OREGON (1)
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
McMinnville
PENNSYLVANIA (1)
Voice of the People
Hazleton
RHODE ISLAND (1)
Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement
Central Falls
TEXAS (1)
Texas Border Volunteers
Waxahachie
