Right-wing environmentalists tried to link immigration to ecological harm

Evidence

Members of the Environmental Justice Movement and the immigrants’ rights movement formed a coalition to beat back an attempt by right-wing environmentalists to have the Sierra Club oppose immigration on environmental grounds. The United Farm Workers has fused the two issues of labor rights and environmental toxicity for the past three decades, calling attention to the effects of pesticides on workers. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 721 (#expands, via linked claim)

To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day in April 2010, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a driving force behind Arizona’s notorious Senate Bill 1070, issued a fifty-three-page report, “The Environmentalist’s Guide to a Sensible Immigration Policy.” As Andrew Ross recounts, FAIR—and allied groups like the Center for Immigration Studies—have actively sought to build a green anti-immigrant constituency, dividing the environmental movement. FAIR spin blames undocumented immigrants for everything from biodiversity loss and wilderness desecration to accelerating climate change and increased greenhouse emissions. A Center for Immigration Studies press release, urging more draconian enforcement in southern Arizona’s national forests deploys the standard coupling of immigration and impurity: “How long will these beautiful lands remain unspoiled if the border is not secured?” — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1320 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Environmental problems manifest larger structural problems, so EJ must fuse movements; Right-wing environmentalists tried to turn the Sierra Club against immigration — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 721; Anti-immigrant groups weaponize wilderness rhetoric to justify border exclusion. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1320

Related

• Right-wing environmentalists tried to turn the Sierra Club against immigration (similarity 0.93)
• Anti-immigrant groups weaponize wilderness rhetoric to justify border exclusion. (similarity 0.87)

Broader Connections

• Right-wing environmentalists tried to turn the Sierra Club against immigration #expands (0.95) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 721
• Anti-immigrant groups weaponize wilderness rhetoric to justify border exclusion. #expands (0.82) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1320