Immigration sophistry smart notes10/6/2023 There are other reasons to engage with CIS as well. But that’s not CIS, and when we fail to engage with legitimate and/or influential organizations, the quality of our national debate is diminished. Giving them a platform is not productive. Such people have little to contribute to any real discussion on immigration (or anything else), and exist mostly just to promote themselves. Some people are simply beyond the pale (David Duke, Richard Spencer) or exist merely to provoke reactions rather than advance any real policy agenda (Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos). I’m not arguing that we need to engage with all individuals or groups that seem hateful. Thus, we need to listen to the organization’s views in order to better understand people who seek to restrict immigration. Also, there are many Americans-including many in the main stream media–who do not view CIS as a hate group, and who pay attention to its opinions. CIS is in-like-Flynn with the current Administration, and so its views really can’t be ignored. While I support the SPLC and believe it does vital work, I think designating CIS as a hate group is a stretch.įurther, even if you have a lower tolerance for hate than me, and you believe CIS is a hate group, that does not seem a good enough reason to exclude its writers from the immigration debate. Also, I’m skeptical of the SPLC’s designation of CIS as a hate group. For these reasons, I believe CIS’s viewpoints deserve serious attention from those of us who care about immigration policy. However, my overall observation of the organization is that it is making important contributions to the immigration debate, and that its policy positions are generally within the mainstream of our society (unfortunately). In contrast, the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled CIS an anti-immigrant hate group due to its founder’s alleged ties to white supremacists and because it circulates writings by supposed white nationalists and anti-Semites.Īs you might guess, I’m not a huge fan of CIS either, and I have found some of their writers to be intellectually dishonest and needlessly divisive (though at least one of their writers thinks I’m a babe, which is quite flattering). CIS bills itself as “low-immigration, pro-immigrant.” It wants to restrict the number of foreigners we allow into the United States. Let’s start with the organization itself. Instead, I want to talk more generally about why it is so important for immigrant advocates to engage with groups like CIS. I can’t really discuss the situation at GW, as I don’t know all the details. However, Judge Arthur’s association with CIS proved controversial and ultimately led to the dis-invitation. The event was billed as a “debate on the words used in the immigration debate.” Panelists were to discuss “words and phrases like maras, chain migration, criminal alien, and others.” The controversial panelist was Andrew Arthur, a Resident Fellow at CIS, and a former Immigration Judge (and a GW alum). This week, we learned that a scheduled debate called “Immigration 2018: Words Matter” was effectively canceled after one of the panelists was dis-invited due to his affiliation with the Center for Immigration Studies (“CIS”), an organization that some consider a hate group. My law partner and I are adjunct professors at GW Law School, where we teach Asylum and Refugee Law (yes, we are basically one-trick ponies).
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