Photo by Leah Millis

The last four years under former President Donald Trump wreaked havoc with immigration policy. From his vicious attacks against Latinx immigrants, to his ban against refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, and the horrifying conditions inside ICE detention centers he helped create, immigration issues roiled the country.

So, how did we get here?

To name a single person: John Tanton. Often labeled as the architect and founding father of the modern-day anti-immigration movement, Tanton was a small-town ophthalmologist in Michigan. Although little known, Tanton’s influence in the American political sphere has been immense. A staunch anti-immigration activist, environmentalist, and conservationist, Tanton was a founder and patron to many anti-immigration non-profit organizations throughout the 1980’s and until his death in 2019. He was also a co-organizer and president of the Petoskey Regional Audubon Society and a long-time member of the Sierra Club where he brought forward a proposal for the organization to take an anti-immigrant stance – which was barely defeated in a vote.  

 Tanton viewed overpopulation and immigration as a threat to the environment and to the future of white America – views that are explicitly ecofascist. In his efforts to thwart immigration, he ended up creating a vast loose-knit network of anti-immigration groups and lobbyists, now dubbed the Tanton network. 

What is the Tanton network? 

 The Tanton network is chock full of organizations and people who have been incredibly influential in driving the rising tide of anti-immigration sentiment in the United States.

• Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR), founded by Tanton, was one of the organizations behind the drafting of the Arizona SB 1070 Bill that allowed police to racially profile and detain illegal immigrants. 

• Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank, also founded by Tanton, was often cited and consulted by the Trump administration on immigration policy and were even featured in the Trump campaign’s first national general election TV ad. 

• NumbersUSA, another anti-immigration group founded by a close associate of Tanton’s – Roy Beck – was influential in impeding the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 which would have provided legal status and a path to citizenship for approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. It never passed. 

• ProEnglish, also established by Tanton, is a nonprofit lobbying organization that supports the English-only movement in their efforts to make English the only official language of the United States.

These are only some of the many organizations that are part of Tanton’s network of anti-immigrant activism. Of the four organizations listed here, FAIR, CIS, and ProEnglish have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

How was Tanton able to do all of this?

With the help of a friend – a very, very rich friend named Cordelia Scaife May. May, a rich heiress and environmentalist, shared many of the same fears as Tanton. She was concerned with population control and believed that the United States was being invaded by foreigners who “breed like hamsters” and would deplete the nation’s natural resources. As a result, the two forged a close alliance. She funded much of Tanton’s projects like FAIR, NumbersUSA, and the Center for Immigration Studies, among others. Despite passing away in 2005, May’s anti-immigrant and environmental efforts live on through the Colcom Foundation, which continues to support organizations focused on immigration reform and population control, allotting nearly $180 million to such groups between 2005-17, including many in the Tanton network. 

How far back does this history of nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment in environmentalism go?

Very far back – think the beginning of the 20th century. In many ways, anti-immigrant sentiment, white supremacy, and nativism were part and parcel of American environmentalism and conservation in this era. Figures like Madison Grant (a nature conservationist and infamous eugenicist) and John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club) were advocates for the conservation of wilderness and harsh critics of non-white “others” who they saw as threats to the natural spaces they sought to preserve. 

Environmental concerns emerged again against the backdrop of the publication of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich in 1968. Although Ehrlich has now acknowledged the book’s oversight and the need to affirm human rights within the environmental movement, his book still fueled anxieties of an impending worldwide famine caused by overpopulation. Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” article, published in the same year, also stoked fears of population growth and the depletion of natural resources. Unlike Ehrlich, however, Hardin has spoken at length that his position “is that this idea of a multiethnic society is a disaster” and to “restrict immigration for that reason.” 

Sounds a bit familiar, no?

Will Tanton’s racist legacy continue on into the future?

It just might. Ecofascist positions which blame immigrants and people of color for environmental harms have emerged within more extreme right-wing factions like the alt-right. Though still in the minority, the growing influence of ecofascism as a violent political faction is not to be underestimated. 

As for the future of anti-immigrant discourse – it might simply be the same old, racist rhetoric that we’ve been accustomed to hearing from Tanton’s network. Only this time it might be under a green banner.