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In my 30 some odd years as a Sierra Club member, I have never been so appalled at an action by the club leadership as I was when I read its ballot argument for Alternative B on the immigration issue. The use of discredited ad hominem and guilt by association arguments, along with an explicit suggestion that persons supporting limits on immigration are racists, was an affront to the entire Club membership. Evidently the club leadership believes that club policies should be adopted according to what they perceive to be popular, or "non-controversial" rather than what is right. In this case, the leadership is not only wrong about how to make policy, but it is wrong about what is popular.
 

I intend to vote for Alternative A, not because I am a racist or wish to be associated with racist politicians, but because I believe it to be sound environmental, social, and economic policy.

David Duke is, indeed a despicable character, but does the Club really want him to determine, by negative association, this country's immigration policy? If David Duke announced that he favored increased federal funding of the National Park service, would the Club oppose it? In noting Governor Pete Wilson's recent immigrant bashing, the Club leadership conveniently forgot that the same Pete Wilson was one of the prime movers behind the Bracero program that brought thousands of Mexican farm laborers into California to provide cheap labor for agribusiness while depriving residents of gainful employment. So, just which Pete Wilson would the leadership have us believe is the one we don't want to be associated with -- the one who bashes immigrants or the one who favors more immigration when it suits a certain purpose?
 
I intend to vote for Alternative A, not because I am a racist or wish to be associated with racist politicians, but because I believe it to be sound environmental, social, and economic policy. In fact, the vast majority of Americans, of all ethnic groups, favor limits on immigration, because they realize that unlimited immigration can do great harm to the country, just as it would to any other country. Indeed, the people most in favor of continued high levels of immigration are business leaders who want an unending source of cheap labor so they can hold down wages even during an economic boom, and certain political leaders who see immigrants as fodder for their political machines. No less a progressive magazine than Mother Jones has cited a Roper Poll showing that non-Hispanic Blacks favor deep cuts in immigration by 11-1, and that H ispanics themselves favor such cuts by a factor of 7-1. (Mother Jones Magazine, September/October, 1997, p. 41.) When you consider that there is almost no immigration of Africans to this country and that the unemployment levels among inner city African-Americans are obscenely high, it is really no mystery why they would be opposed to high immigration rates and why Barbara Jordan, one of the great civil rights leaders in recent decades, called for reduced immigration. It is simply condescending and insulting for middle class whites to assume that members of minority groups cannot think for themselves on issues that greatly affect them, and the assumption made by the Club leadership that ethnic minorities are necessarily in the pro-immigration camp is a classic example of this outdated thinking.
 
Yes, we need to work on global environmental solutions, but it is an old axiom that before people can preach to others about how to conduct their affairs, they had better set their own house in order. The United States must get its own environmental house in order, and this will never happen if we do not solve our overpopulation problem, much of which, for better or worse, is caused by excessive immigration.
 
            Sincerely,
 
            Peter Hanauer
            Berkeley, CA
 

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