A nativist in the heart of PWC

OUR OPINION
Published: March 12, 2008

What is a nativist?

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nativist is the name for a new group of activists battling the influx of illegal immigrants into our country.

And the center has named Greg Letiecq, president of Help Save Manassas and political blogger on bvbl.net, as one of the top 20 most influential leaders on the illegal immigration issue.

This serves only to cement the image of Prince William County and the surrounding jurisdictions as a haven for intolerance.

This is bad enough, if only because of the company Letiecq has on the nativist list —  some of them are radical and racist.

But not all of them are.

In a description, the center says that some nativists are not extremists and are genuinely concerned with addressing the illegal immigration issue. We wish we could say that Letiecq had demonstrated similar attributes.

Unfortunately, the center describes Help Save Manassas as an extremist organization and quotes Letiecq’s often extreme language in its bio of him.

Letiecq said that he thinks the center is trying to shut down the debate with its use of the term nativist. He said the center wants to “smear anyone who holds an opposing viewpoint as a racist and a member of a hate group.”

We concede that the “racist” card is played too often in this debate. But the “illegal alien apologist” card is also bandied about by people like Letiecq to describe those who oppose them.

The fact of the matter is that racism is part of this debate, because whether Letiecq wants to admit it or not, racism and prejudice does drive some of the anti-illegal immigrant fervor in Prince William County. 

And part of the trick to dealing effectively with illegal immigration is dividing those with racist intentions from those who want to address the issue in an unbiased manner. The extremist rhetoric used by Letiecq and some of his supporters does nothing to help establish this dividing line.

The founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center were instrumental in the Civil Rights movement and the center was a staunch opponent of the Klu Klux Klan. The center’s credentials are impressive and dismissing the inclusion of Letiecq on its list of nativists would be foolish.

As a bastion of tolerance in a sometime intolerant world, the Southern Poverty Law Center has much to bring to the debate on illegal immigration, including the following fear:

“A dangerous mix of nativist intolerance, armed and untrained civilians, and wild-eyed conspiracy theories could easily explode into violence.”

This is one of our fears too.