Last Thursday, William Gheen of the immigration restrictionist group — Americans for Legal Immigration Reform PAC — spoke at a Houston Tea Party event on what he views as a “conspiracy” or “globalist” plan to “transfigure this country” through illegal immigration. In a video of his speech distributed by ALIPAC over the weekend, Gheen claims that politicians want to help “illegal aliens” because the two groups lie, cheat, and steal:

Now why do so many corrupt politicians want to help illegal immigrants? As of just this afternoon, I believe it’s because they have a lot in common with illegal aliens. These corrupt politicians and illegal aliens have a lot in common like lying, stealing, and taking everything that’s not bolted down from the American taxpayer. Lying, cheating, and stealing.

Americans are being systematically replaced in our jobs, in our schools, in our universities, and in our health care systems. And if Barack Obama and his team pass comprehensive amnesty and turn 15 million illegal aliens into voters, they’re gonna replace all of you at the ballot box and the borders of the United States will be irreparably destroyed. [...] It’s a bit of a conspiracy. It is a plan. Illegal immigration is not just something that is happening randomly, it is part of a plan to transfigure this country. It’s a globalist plan that I call grand theft nation. [...] It’s time for constitution to be restored and all states shall be protected from invasion.

Watch it:

While Gheen’s audience appeared receptive, polling shows that the tea party movement as a whole doesn’t place much emphasis on the immigration issue. A recently released set of national surveys by the Winston Group found that those who associate with the tea party movement are primarily motivated by economic and fiscal concerns and that cracking down on immigration ranks low on their priority list, as it does for most Americans. Meanwhile, FreedomWorks chairman and tea party strategist Dick Armey has outright opposed letting nativists under the tea party “umbrella” and has suggested that doing so would be poisonous to the movement. Rather than calling undocumented immigrants liars and thiefs, Armey has claimed he believes they are “good people” just “trying to feed their babies.”

According to Armey’s criteria, the tea party umbrella may not be big enough for Gheen. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that ALIPAC “is supported by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, recently designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, and allied with various Minuteman factions.” The American Defamation League accuses ALIPAC of promoting “virulent anti- Hispanic and anti-immigrant rhetoric” and “adopting the tactics and rhetoric of racist groups and moving it into the mainstream.” Given this information, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) reelection campaign called on challenger and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) to disavow ALIPAC’s endorsement on two separate occasions.

Back in March, one of Gheen’s colleagues — Roy Beck of NumbersUSA — asked his organization’s members to “leave off the Hispanic-Latino stuff” when talking about immigration to skeptical tea party activists and urged followers to translate their anti-immigrant views to fit the tea party anti-government, anti-tax narrative. A recent study showed legalizing undocumented immigrants through comprehensive immigration reform would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue within three years.

Since the Arizona legislature passed the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” a bill which will probably end up establishing the harshest set of state immigration laws in the country, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s phone has been reportedly ringing off the hook with residents encouraging her to either sign or veto Senate Bill 1070. Though Brewer has refused to comment on which action she plans on taking, she did assure attendees of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Black and White Ball this Saturday that she will do what is fair. The Phoenix New Times reports:

Speaking to attendees of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Black and White Ball Saturday night at the downtown Phoenix Sheraton, Governor Jan Brewer refused to say whether or not she would sign state Senator Russell Pearce’s police state/anti-immigrant bill SB 1070. But she assured the crowd that she understood its opposition to the measure.

“In regards to Senate Bill 1070,” she stated, “I will tell you that I never make comment, like most governor’s throughout our country, before a bill reaches my desk. But I hear you, and I will assure you that I will do what I believe is the right thing so that everyone is treated fairly.”

Her statement prompted a quip from the following speaker, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who asked the mostly Latino crowd, “I think what I just heard was a commitment to veto that bill, whatdya think?”

If Brewer is really committed to making sure “everyone is treated fairly,” signing off on SB 1070 would certainly require compromising her stated principles. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona has already predicted that the bill will “exacerbate the problem of racial profiling” which “raises concerns about the prolonged detention of citizens and legal residents.” Given the fact that police officers could arrest anyone who cannot immediately prove they are legally present in the U.S., the New York Times concludes that it “means if you are brown-skinned and leave home without a wallet, you are in trouble.” Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has called the new Arizona statute “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law.”

Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times points out that a recent Rasmussen poll shows Brewer “ahead of a wide field of contenders in the GOP gubernatorial primary” with 26 percent support. Given that two-thirds (67%) of Arizona’s GOP primary voters say that a candidate’s position on immigration is “very important” in determining how they will vote, Brewer’s decision on SB 1070 will certainly affect her comfortable lead. While many conservatives may support the bill, Latino republicans have already drawn a thick line in the sand. Somos Republicans, an Arizona Latino Republican group, issued a press statement explicitly stating that “if Jan Brewer signs SB 1070 next week, members of Somos Republicans and several Arizona Hispanic Republicans will not vote for her in 2010.”

Wonk Room reported last week that former Arizona governor and current Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently pointed out that she vetoed at least two similar bills during her time in office because such laws would interfere with public safety and not “allow law enforcement to focus on where law enforcement needs to focus.”

Our guest blogger is Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

As Iraq’s post-election coalition negotiations continue, some Iraqi leaders were surprised by comments Vice President Joe Biden made to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on the election results last week (“The vice president bears good news from Iraq.”) Of particular concern was Biden’s assertion that Iran’s bid for influence in Iraq failed.

A senior adviser to one Iraqi leader wrote an email to Ignatius in response, and this has been circulated to Obama administration officials. I verified the authenticity of the email and got permission to post it on the condition of redacting anything that might indicate its source. This email offers a valuable perspective on the intensity of post-election jockeying and debate in Iraq:

Iran did not succeed in its efforts to determine the outcome of the elections but, I would not say it failed either. It is true that Iraqiya came first in elections and Iran is definitely not in favor of such an outcome. However, Iraqiya barely edged in the elections and Iran had a role in reducing the gap making life difficult for Iraqiya (through the de-Baathification crisis). This makes it almost impossible for Iraqiya to form a government without teaming up with either the Iraq National Alliance (INA) or the State of Law (SOL). This means, the least to say, that Iraqiya’s arm could be easily twisted by Iran.

Iran also succeeded in keeping its options open where, if the two Shiite blocs join, then they’ll be able to form the government. What made this scenario even more plausible is the Supreme Court’s advisory opinion about interpreting article 76 of the Iraqi constitution. The court’s opinion stated that the president can nominate a prime minister from either largest electoral bloc or the largest bloc formed after the elections. The nomination of the prime minister depends on the number of seats in parliament after it convenes.

As such, Iran right after the elections and under the premise of the “Nowrooz summit” invited the INA, SOL, and the Kurdish alliance for negotiations. It became clear that Iran is trying to create a gravitational center that controls—dominates—and attracts other blocs to form the coming government. The alliance of the two Shiite blocs is that center. The “summit” yielded agreement on the following principles: the coming prime minister must be a candidate of the two Shiite blocs; the two Shiite blocs would start negotiations to merge and thereby form the largest bloc in parliament that can nominate a prime minister; Kurds would join and Talabani would be the coming president.

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