Why Quote Nativists and Pretend that They are Unbiased Observers?

A L.A. Times article today reviews proposed benefit cuts to legal immigrants.  In support of the limits, the article quotes the following:  “‘Five years is a legitimate time to ensure that people who have come here the right way are willing to assimilate and be loyal tax-paying Americans,’ said Barbara Coe of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform.”   

One wonders why the L.A. Times could not find someone a bit more balanced than Barbara Coe to comment.  An ardent supporter of California’s Propistion 187 in 1994 (which a court found unconstitutional), Coe has been a leading voice for the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Center includes this in its description of Coe as one of the nation’s “nativists”:

“Vitriolic, conspiracy-minded and just plain mean, Coe routinely refers to Mexicans as `savages.’ She claims to have exposed a secret Mexican plan (the `Plan de Aztlan’) to reconquer the American Southwest [Coe reportedly has claimed that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is part of this conspiracy.]. Last May, at a `Unite to Fight’ anti-immigration summit in Las Vegas, she launched the kind of defamatory rant for which she is infamous. `We are suffering robbery, rape and murder of law-abiding citizens at the hands of illegal barbarians,’ she warned her cowering audience, `who are cutting off heads and appendages of blind, white, disabled gringos.'” (emphasis added).

Can’t the venerable L.A. Times, one of the nation’s leading newspapers, find somebody a bit more reputable to comment on immigrant benefit restrictions?

KJ