A famous French Army Marshall, Ferdinand Foch, declared during the darkest days of WWI that: “Hard pressed on my right; center is yielding; impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent, I shall attack!”

Today’s version among the far right anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican lunatic fringe that has controlled the immigration issue for several years is just the opposite of Marshall Foch.

They are in full retreat, not because they have lost their CHUTZPAH or have run out of lies, but reality and common sense have overtaken them in the legislative halls, in public opinion and in courage of Republicans who refuse to bow to cowardly immigration restrictionists.

The national restrictionist cabal is led politically by the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and its myriad affiliated front groups like the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) and NumbersUSA and intellectually by their supplicant publication “The Social Quarterly” and a web site of author Peter Brimelow’s, Vdare.com, named for the first white child born in Virginia circa 1607.

The founder of these groups was a man named John Tanton who previously served as head of Zero Population Growth (ZPG) who also served in high Sierra Club office and founded Planned Parenthood locals. His underlying theme is that the U.S. is being caught by people – Mexicans – with their “pants down” versus America being caught with its “pants up.”
He also targets all Roman Catholics.

Facts contradict their old time racist (as declared by the Southern Poverty Law Center) views of Mexicans breeding like rabbits as the Mexican birth rates of old have been slashed to almost U.S. rates by decades of birth control education by the Mexican government.

Nonetheless, the Tanton/FAIR groups and their paid lawyer, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach are busy on many fronts trying to pass laws that attack people who may be in the country illegally, especially if they are Mexican. Towns in Pennsylvania, Texas, Nebraska and the states of Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia have all passed Kobach-written laws that are attacks on Spanish-speaking immigrants even if they are legal.

Central to these “laws” is racial profiling by authorities of people who they “suspect” of being in country illegally. Authorities are not permitted by federal civil rights laws to profile by race or ethnicity. Nonetheless, these laws have common corollary elements of allowing almost every single public employee to confront people they “suspect” of being illegally present, to demand proof of legal residency.

We speak of building inspectors, municipal bus drivers, meter maids, school teachers, school administrators and office clerks, not just sworn police officers.

In Alabama, the legislature has pulled back from its passage of a highly dubious anti-illegal resident law passed last year and mostly stopped by a federal court. It has introduced new legislation eliminating highly controversial elements that do not pass constitutional muster. In Arizona, before its infamous SB 1070 even went into effect, the legislature made major changes that a federal court invalidated anyway. In Texas, the town of Farmer’s Branch with its own Kobach-written law has spent mucho dollars in the federal courts defending its law and has lost at every level almost bankrupting the city. In Nebraska, a Kobach-written town law has never been implemented because the town has no money to fight for it in court. They know they will lose.

And now, Nebraska hits the news again. Right wing Republican legislators tried to defeat a pre-natal care bill that would be available to expectant mothers regardless of legal residency. Governor Dave Heineman weighed in on the question with this statement:

“We should only be using taxpayer funds for legal Nebraska citizens, not for illegal aliens. I am going to fight against LB 599 because it’s not right (April 3, 2012).”

This statement, of course, proves the Governor has a very limited view of reality.

First of all, people in Nebraska who might not be legally-present pay taxes thus are “taxpayers.” Secondly, though he claims to be “pro-life” he refuses to acknowledge that pre-natal care is not to treat a woman but to make sure her baby-to-be is born healthy. That baby will probably be born in Nebraska, born a United States citizen as per the Constitution.

Governor Heineman declared he would veto the bill if passed. It passed because Republican legislators ignored the ignorant governor and voted “Pro-life” for LB 599 31-15, a veto proof majority.

The question, then, has the anti-immigrant, anti-illegal-immigrant; anti-Mexican provocateur of the Tanton-type hit the high tide mark of the movement? Its corollary question is: is it receding in the face of court injunctions and opposition based on the Constitution and common sense?

And, where do we place the credit for this triumph: The Courts? The people…Common sense…The Constitution?

How about, all of the above?

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Raoul Lowery Contreras (1941) was born in Mexico, raised in the USA. Former U.S. Marine, athlete, Dean’s List at San Diego State. Professional political consultant and California Republican Party official(1963-65)…Television news commentator, radio talk show host…published Op-Ed writer (1988 to present)…author of 12 books (as of 1-05-12). His books are available on Amazon.com.