The Wall Street Journal ran a very long piece today on grassroots groups opposed to open borders and illegal immigation. Please see here for my observationson that open borders newspaper run by the American elite.

Here is the article, from a different paper. The Dustin Inman Society is mentioned.

Grassroots groups boost clout in immigration fight
Thursday, September 28, 2006

By Miriam Jordan, The Wall Street Journal

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Armed with a computer and less than $100, Joseph Turner two years ago formed a group called “Save Our State.” His goal: save California from turning into a “Third World cesspool” of illegal immigrants, he says. The group doesn’t have a formal membership, and Mr. Turner counts barely 2,000 people on his email list and message board.

Yet this meager base has proved to be a powerful springboard. Through his Web site, Mr. Turner has recruited supporters to hold confrontational protests outside Home Depot stores, where unauthorized workers often gather to seek jobs. He has also helped ignite a nationwide movement by local governments to crack down on illegal immigration. So far, about 10 towns have passed ordinances to drive out undocumented immigrants after getting the idea from Mr. Turner. Dozens of other towns are considering such measures.

“My idea of activism is aggressive, street-level and in-your-face activism,” says Mr. Turner, who strikes a clean-cut look with slicked-back black hair and icy blue eyes. He adds: “I don’t believe in turning the other cheek.”

Mr. Turner is part of an anti-immigrant brushfire that is gathering force at the grass-roots level around the U.S. Small groups like Mr. Turner’s Save Our State are cropping up from coast to coast, recruiting members and devising tactics to tackle illegal immigration in their communities. Critics call many of these groups racist, a charge organizers deny. What no one disputes is that they are tapping into widespread frustration over the federal government’s failure to adopt a national immigration policy while a deeply divided Congress clashes over how to deal with 12 million illegal immigrants.

The Center for New Community, a Chicago organization that tracks immigration issues, says there are 211 so-called nativist groups — groups that advocate protecting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants — across the U.S., up from 37 two years ago. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, also says nativist groups are on the rise and that several are hate groups, including Mr. Turner’s Save Our State. The law center defines a hate group as one that singles out and promotes hatred of another group, based on ethnicity, language, religion, sexual inclination or immigration status. Mr. Turner denies he runs a hate group.

These grass-roots organizations are having an impact. In North Carolina, state legislators say the fierce opposition of one anti-illegal immigration group torpedoed a bill proposed last year that would have allowed undocumented students who graduate from state high schools to pay in-state college tuition. In Georgia, another group’s mobilization efforts were crucial to passing a bill last spring to curb illegal immigration. In Arizona, a group called Protect Our City is pushing for local officials, including police officers, to help federal authorities enforce immigration laws within Phoenix.

The groups are often one-man shows, steered by tech-savvy leaders who creatively use the Web to mobilize support for immigration protests, boycotts, legislation and media coverage in their areas. Their influence is amplified as they find each other online and coordinate their efforts. Save Our State has occasionally joined forces with a North Carolina group as well as the volunteer group Minuteman Project, which patrols the border with the goal of stopping illegal immigrants from entering U.S. soil.

Several budding groups receive funding from older, well-endowed national organizations, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been battling immigration for decades. Ron Woodard, head of NC Listen, a North Carolina group, says he improved his public-speaking skills in courses sponsored by FAIR. The Washington, D.C.-based national group, which advocates curbing legal immigration as well as stopping illegal entries to the U.S., also provided his group with “minor” financial support, he says.

These groups often strike a chord in small towns and areas where Hispanics are relative newcomers. Immigrants are increasingly bypassing traditional Hispanic centers in big cities, California and the southwest. Instead, they’re settling in smaller, homogeneous towns and in Middle America, where many residents are still unaccustomed to them and fear that wages are being undercut by immigrants taking blue-collar jobs in their community.

“The financial costs to Georgia taxpayers of supplying (bilingual) education, incarceration, medical care and social benefits to the hundreds of thousands of people who are here in violation of our laws is becoming impossible to ignore,” declared one Web site run by a Georgia grass-roots group, the Dustin Inman Society. “Someone please point to a case of wages in Georgia having gone up because of illegal immigration!”

Click here for the rest of it. Letters to Wall Street Journal go to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com