This past weekend, famed guitarist Carlos Santana reacted to the Arizona copycat immigration bill that was recently signed into law in Georgia by Gov. Nathan Deal (R). “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Santana stated at Sunday’s MLB Civil Rights Game at Turner Field. Santana called the law “anti-American” and reasoned that its passage is “about fear, that people are going to steal my job.” Santana responded, “No we ain’t. You don’t clean toilets and clean sheets, stop shucking and jiving.”

Roy Beck, founder and CEO of the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA which fervently supports Arizona’s immigration law, believes Santana has “reached a new low in hate speech“:

Rock guitarist Carlos Santana may have reached a new low in hate speech against American workers when he took to a microphone on the field before the Atlanta Braves-Philadelphia Phillies game yesterday. [...]

Santana is like most bigots who speak, not from knowledge or facts, but from the emotional hatred stuck in their guts. [...] The people of Georgia who supported and pressed for the new mandatory E-Veriy law were operating in the best traditions of the Civil Rights movement and should have been given the civil rights award at the baseball ceremony.

Instead, the ceremony was dominated by Santana who shamed himself and tarnished the civil rights tradition with his hateful diatribe against the most vulnerable members of our national community.

You’d think Beck would choose his words more carefully given how sensitive he is about how people describe his own ideology. A year ago, NumbersUSA took issue with posts I wrote that included excerpts from troubling videos it was promoting on its website — one which made the case against Mexican migration and the “exportation of poverty” and another that included speakers who, in the past, have expressed concerns about an “illegal alien invasion” and the spread of bilingualism. Beck’s organization submitted a complaint to YouTube and had Think Progress’ entire YouTube account shut down.

In 2009, a NumbersUSA employee sent Think Progress a sharply worded email threatening to sue us for libel after I wrote a post which linked back to a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) report that identified NumbersUSA as an anti-immigrant group and quoted a respected researcher who challenged several of the group’s questionable research findings.

And during the march for immigration reform in 2010, Beck accused three pro-immigrant female mimes of threatening him and his bodyguards with “constant efforts at crushing physical intimidation” instigated by “blowing hateful whistles” and waving balloons.

Yet, Beck isn’t nearly as touchy when it comes to the rhetoric coming from people who support his organization. During a public conference call hosted by NumbersUSA last year, one NumbersUSA supporter suggested portraying women from Mexico as the “new welfare queens.” Meanwhile, during the 1990′s, Beck was editor of The Social Contract, a journal started by John Tanton that “routinely publishes race-baiting articles penned by white nationalists.”

Santana’s comments were controversial, but they pale in comparison to some of the overtly racist diatribes that have been published by the Social Contract Press and they hardly qualify as hate speech. There are plenty of reasons to believe that Arizona’s approach to immigration would lead to rampant racial profiling and potential human rights violations. Two courts have already stated that it is likely unconstitutional. That’s pretty much the antithesis of what America stands for.

Today, the Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report entitled “From a “Green Farce” to a Green Future: Refuting False Claims About Immigrants and the Environment.” The report, written by researcher Jorge Madrid, “strikes down many of the false arguments regarding immigrants and the environment, provides a clearer picture of immigrants’ environmental contributions, and outlines real environmental solutions that can cut carbon and curb climate change.”

On a press call on the report’s findings earlier today, Van Jones, who leads CAP’s Green Opportunity Initiative, echoed the warnings issued in the report. “There are other organizations that are trying to drive wedges between communities that are seeking solutions,” stated Jones. More specifically, Jones noted that “there is a greenwashing of hate that is going on in our country.” Anti-immigrant front groups are using “green concerns as a bludgeon against immigrants and low-income communities.” However, Jones points out that it’s possible to “have an America that is green and prosperous and welcoming of newcomers.” In fact, “immigrants are not a problem when it comes to the greening of a America, they are disproportionately part of the solution. Immigrant communities live greener life styles and support greener policies.”

Madrid produced similar findings:

The assumption that immigrant-driven population growth alone drives the U.S. carbon footprint is false. The 10 highest carbon-emitting cities are home to the smallest immigrant populations. The cities with the lowest carbon footprint, on the other hand, have an average immigrant population of 26 percent.

Immigrants, especially recent immigrants, tend to lead “greener” lifestyles than the native-born and are more likely to use public transportation and practice sustainable habits like compact living, conservation, and recycling.

Immigrants, who are largely low income, are also more likely to have their lives disrupted by extreme weather events and other adverse effects of climate change. Immigrants are disproportionately hurt by the dirty energy economy and face unique environmental challenges. Consequently, they fight for greener solutions, including challenging the use of hazardous pesticides in the agricultural fields where many immigrants work.

2010 polls of key electoral states find that immigrant-rich communities overwhelmingly favor policy that will create green jobs and tend to support congressional candidates who back efforts to fight global warming.

I’ve written extensively about the claims made by anti-immigrant “environmental” front groups in the past. Those organizations include NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Progressives for Immigration Reform, and others. Most recently, FAIR released “The Environmentalist’s Guide to a Sensible Immigration Policy.” The report connects immigration to “pollution, sprawl, congestion, and ecological degradation,” complaining that “so-called environmentalists pretend as if this connection does not exist.”

On the call, Madrid noted that “It’s important that we not let these kind of false answers go unanswered or unchallenged.” Madrid explained that environmentalists aren’t “ignoring” the connection between immigrants and environmental degradation, rather, evidence actually suggests the contrary. “These organizations are not part of the mainstream environmental movement,” affirmed Madrid. A representative from the Sierra Club who happened to be listening to the call backed Madrid’s claims.

This afternoon, a gunman entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD and appears to have taken at least one person hostage. Among his various bizarre, eco-related demands, one relates directly to immigration. The alleged hostage-taker, James Jay Lee, calls for the elimination of “anchor baby filth” and “immigration pollution”:

Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

Lee’s immigration screed bears a troubling resemblance to views and policies espoused by anti-immigrant groups such as NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Progressives for Immigration Reform, and others. Just this past month, FAIR released “The Environmentalist’s Guide to a Sensible Immigration Policy.” The report connects immigration to “pollution, sprawl, congestion, and ecological degradation,” complaining that “so-called environmentalists pretend as if this connection does not exist.” As usual, FAIR prescribes an overall reduction in immigration as the solution to the country’s environmental woes (in slightly more diplomatic terms).

Last month, The Nation published a story explaining the history behind the “greenwashing” of “nativism”:

Population stabilization has been taboo for progressive greens since the late 1970s. But anti-immigrationists like FAIR founder John Tanton, a former Sierra Club activist, cut their teeth on the overpopulation anxiety that permeated the environmental movement earlier in that decade. Subsequently, they used the Malthusian lingo of resource scarcity, carrying capacity (the maximum population an environment can sustain indefinitely) and overshoot (when a population exceeds its carrying capacity) to launder the image of the white nationalists with whom they became allies. When climate change became a public issue, it gave fresh impetus to what population specialist Betsy Hartmann has called the “greening of hate.”

CIS and other FAIR spinoffs like NumbersUSA and Population-Environment Balance, along with the sympathetic Carrying Capacity Network, have all touted immigration as the chief reason for the rise in greenhouse gas emissions—as low-carbon immigrants adopted the high-carbon lifestyles of the rich countries to which they had moved.

It’s not a coincidence that many of these are amongst the same groups that have always supported changing the 14th amendment to deny “anchor babies,” or the American-born children of undocumented immigrants, citizenship — long before the debate entered the political mainstream this summer. FAIR’s legal arm, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is also responsible for authoring Arizona’s recently passed immigration law.

Studies by “so-called environmentalists” actually show that “immigrants, in essence, are doing precisely what planners want the rest of us to do.” UCLA professor Ali Modarres recently found that, compared to Americans, more immigrants walk, bike, bus, or metro to work and fewer drive cars in the state of California.

On Thursday, NumbersUSA — an immigration restrictionist group that calls for the suspension of most legal immigration — pounced on a report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) which found, amongst other things, that legalizing undocumented immigrants would not have a “significant effect” on the economy. According to NumbersUSA director Roy Beck, PPIC’s study validates what his organization has been saying all along:

Amnesty supporters claim that illegal aliens are paid below average wages, but by offering them a path to citizenship, their wages will increase. The study by the non-partisan institute, however, says that’s not the case.

“NumbersUSA has never argued that amnesty is bad because it would hurt the economy,” Roy Beck responded. “What we argue is that an amnesty would give some 7 million illegal aliens locks on jobs that 7 million less-educated unemployed Americans would love to have in construction, service, manufacturing and transportation. “In addition, an amnesty would eventually cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of extra dollars in services and welfare to which low-wage and unemployed illegal aliens are not currently entitled. “And the millions of amnestied illegal aliens would soon be able to apply for tens of millions of their (mostly poor) relatives to come join them, adding even more burdens on the infrastructure and other beleaguered taxpayer-supported elements of our society.”

In fact, PPIC’s study debunks each of Beck’s statements by pointing out that immigration would not have a significant effect on labor market conditions or demand for social benefits:

What does this [legalization] mean for the larger labor market? Given that the labor market returns associated with legalization are small, at least in the short term, we argue that a legalization program is not likely to significantly affect the employment outcomes of native workers. In particular, the lack of upward occupational mobility among low-skill unauthorized workers suggests that legalization will not lead to much, if any, increase in labor market competition with low-skill natives. [...]

In addition, we expect that there would be little short-term change in the expenditures of public assistance programs. The eligibility rules for most of these programs would probably prohibit an increase in their use, at least in the short run, by even the poorest of newly legalized immigrants.

The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) further points out that PPIC’s report only takes into account the short-term economic effects of legalizing undocumented immigrants and also does not consider the effect of enforcement and future flow components that would undoubtedly accompany any legislative legalization effort. As a result, IPC concludes that PPIC “vastly underestimates the significant economic benefits that would likely flow from legalization.” A recent report from the Immigration Policy Center and Center for American Progress that does consider those factors concludes that, in the first three years after legalization, the higher earning power of newly legalized workers would translate “into an increase in net personal income of $30 to $36 billion, which would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue.”

Taken together, IPC and PPIC’s findings create a much rosier picture than the gloom and doom projections forecasted by Beck. PPIC’s reports suggests that, in its beginning stages, legalization would yield a small, but positive effect on the nation’s economy during a time when newly legalized immigrants would be ineligible to receive most public benefits. IPC further concludes that, over the next ten years, those immigrants will climb up the socio-economic ladder and probably not even need public assistance — all while generating at least $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. gross domestic product throughout that time period.

Last week, Ezra Klein pointed out that tea parties haven’t focused very much on immigration and that “nativism has been, to me, the dog that didn’t bark.” Gabriel Arana responded to Klein’s piece, maintaining his original assertion that “growing nativism among members of Congress reflects a society-wide trend” that could derail immigration reform efforts. A recently released set of national surveys by the Winston Group confirms Klein’s first observation. 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. Noah Kristula-Green of the Frum Forum reports on the findings:

If Obama decides to tackle immigration reform next, some have wondered what the tea party response would be. Interestingly, it may not be an issue for most rank and file tea party members. When asked whether immigration was an issue that motivated how they voted, tea parties responded that it was just as low on their priority list as the average population. They also gave “cracking down on immigration” as a “best” way to create jobs nearly same weight as the average voter—which is to say, not as much weight as tax cuts or developing energy resources.

Implication: Some have argued that if the Democrats move to immigration reform, that the tea party movement will reveal itself to be driven by anti-immigrant sentiment. The data does not suggest that this should be expected.

It’s understandable why Arana would reach a different conclusion. There is undeniably a nativist strain present within the tea party movement, as evidenced by the 18% who favor cracking down on immigration as a way to create jobs. Anti-immigrant groups like NumbersUSA have been working hard to mimic the tea party movement and to foster any nativist tendencies to promote their own agenda. Americans for Legal Immigration PAC went as far as to stage a series of poorly attended copy cat tea party protests against immigration and is in the process of planning more.

Yet, according to the report, tea party followers aren’t latching on. Polling shows that they prioritize job creation, deficit, spending, and tax issues specifically because “they are seen as a means to reducing unemployment and improving the economy.” Roy Beck, director of one of the largest anti-immigrant groups, has been encouraging his members to frame their message in fiscal and economic terms. However, the fact that most tea party supporters still don’t see immigration as a hot issue suggests that Beck has, so far, been largely unconvincing. Furthermore, 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.

However, contrary to what Klein suggests, nativism doesn’t just bark — it also bites. While nativists represent a minority, they represent a loud minority that manages to make enough noise to motivate hateful acts of violence and scare politicians into crafting bad policy. As Klein points out, the health care debate ended quietly for the nativists, but that’s mostly because immigrants were thrown under the bus when things started to heat up. Meanwhile, hate crime statistics against immigrants and anyone who looks like an immigrant demonstrate a troubling upward trend. Research has suggested that unrestrained immigrant-bashing on behalf of nativists is largely responsible for the rise.

Ultimately, Klein aptly observes that the immigration issue has failed to incite the tea party movement as a whole. He also correctly points out that the American public has not undergone a broader shift towards a negative opinion of immigrants. (In fact, the majority of Americans, across party lines, support comprehensive immigration reform which includes a path to legalization). The Winston Group’s findings further suggest that though nativism is certainly a reality, most Americans — including many tea party supporters — are above it.

This past weekend, 200,000 people representing a broad coalition of labor, faith, progressives, and conservatives peacefully marched on the National Mall in support of comprehensive immigration reform. Roy Beck, director of the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA, decided to bring himself, his cameras, and his bodyguards to the march as part of his organization’s counter campaign, S.T.O.P. Amnesty in 4 Days.

Robert Erickson, an activist from Minneapolis, was one of the demonstrators who Beck interviewed. Erickson satirically presented himself as a sympathetic activist concerned about “European illegal immigration.” By employing the charged rhetoric of immigration restrictionists, Erickson successfully engaged Beck in an extended conversation that highlighted the hypocrisy and inconsistencies that encompass the anti-immigrant movement. He even riled Beck up about the supposed dangers of “illegal European immigration” that date back to the days of Columbus:

ERICKSON: I want to say that illegal European immigration is one of the worst things we have going in this country. It’s not a new problem, it’s been going on for hundreds of years. Illegal European immigrants have committed some of the worst crimes in history, including slavery, genocide, and theft of indigenous lands. Have you thought about this at all Roy?

BECK: Yeah, in fact, our very open immigration system in the 1880s and 1890s very much helped finish off the Indians in terms of pushing them into the reservations…

ERICKSON: Colombus go home?

BECK: Ok. [...]

ERICKSON: I’m not sure if E-verify is enough, when we’re talking about murder…

BECK: Now you’re into the organized crime. You are exactly right. Some of the worst organized crime in this country are white Europeans.

Watch it:

At first, Beck appeared happy to find someone who he thought was a like-minded supporter. Rather than realizing that the joke was on him, Beck seemed intent on trying to find some common ground with Erickson. While condemning the actions of European explorers like Columbus, Beck goes out of his way to draw an implicit parallel when he points out that “They [Native Americans] got overrun, they lost their country, they lost their land, they lost their societies, and, for the most part, they lost their culture…No nation should allow themselves for that to happen.” Several minutes into the interview, once Beck realizes that Erickson is sarcastically advocating the deportation of all white Europeans, Beck brings the conversation to an embarrassing halt.

Last fall, Erickson managed to get on the speaking list of an anti-immigrant tea party protest. Erickson orated on the perils of illegal European immigration and led a crowd of counter-protesters in his chants of “Columbus go home!” and “Europeans out!”