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If viewers got the impression that there was something else going on they were right. Glenn Spencer is not about curtailing illegal immigration. His beef is Hispanic immigration, particularly Mexican immigration, legal and illegal. Spencer is a hatemonger whose organization Voices of Citizens Together (VCT) has spent the past decade trying to fight a war based on a conspiracy theory that Mexicans are trying to reconquer the U.S. It is a popular theory that we hear often from white supremacists, so it is no surprise that it lands Spencer here.
In 1996, Spencer was invited to speak before the Congressional Task Force during the flap over the election between Loretta Sanchez and then-Rep. Bob Dornan (Dornan, who lost his seat in the race, charged that he lost due to voting by illegal immigrants who should not have voted). There he made the following statement:
"I would like to go back to the Atlantic Monthly magazine of November, 1996 where Stanford professor, David Kennedy, said the following, quote, 'The United States has had no experience with what is taking place in the American Southwest. In the next generation or so we will see a kind of Chicano Quebec taking place.' Professor Kennedy characterized it by saying it was a reconquista, a taking back of the American Southwest that was taken from Mexico as the result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo."
It is with this premise that Spencer would basically make himself an enemy of any Mexican or Latino in this country as well as out, charging them with being a part of this "reconquista". During the Los Angeles mayoral campaign in 2000, the Democratic (and Latino) candidate, Former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa became Public Enemy #1 to him. He attempted to publish a full page ad in the San Fernando Valley Daily News which tried to promote the candidate's involvement with a picture of him standing with then-President Zedillo of Mexico. He lifted the picture from the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News refused the ad on the grounds of copyright infringement. Spencer continued to campaign against Villaraigosa, who eventually lost the election to the Republican candidate Chris Hahn.
Flyer calling for people to come to Arizona to hunt people crossing the border.
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There is also something going around on the internet that he is a member of the Jewish Defense League. According to one website, when his radio show was pulled off the air at 870 KIEV-AM in Glendale, CA, he reportedly written a letter to the Earl Trout, the Program Manager, charging him with a double-standard of allowing someone he considered anti-Semitic to continue on the air. "Our organization was co-founded by a Jew," he said in the letter. I am a member of the Jewish Defense League. Both of my sons-in-law are Jewish." The Jewish Defense League, whose own hatred of immigrants has been directed moreso to those Arabic/Muslim immigrants, says they know nothing of Spencer being a part of their organization.
Another thing on the internet that may raise doubts about his embracing of other cultures is what we found on his website which apparently came from Project USA. "Whatever the benefits of ethnic or racial diversity, we are already the most diverse country in the world. It is not clear we need more of it," the excerpt says, further going on to say that "Though we often hear the mantra 'Diversity is our strength,' polls show that Americans of all ethnic backgrounds are less than convinced." This, even with his selective hatemongering makes him still racist enough to make himself a contemporary of racists who are not as selective and that has placed him in the company of groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens, speaking at their conferences as well as the conferences of American Renaissance.
There is another WP connection. In 1999 Arizona rancher and former Cochise County deputy Roger Barnett became Spencer's poster boy. Barnett, who was on the Donahue show with Spencer, claims that he has made thousands of armed "arrests" of illegal Mexican migrants on his ranch, a video of his activities being produced by Spencer's spin-off group American Patrol. Spencer, who was based primarily On May 13, 2000, he and Spencer, along with other well known xenophobes like Barbara Coe attended and spoke at a meeting in Douglass, Arizona to discuss what they can do to keep people from crossing the border. The meeting, sponsored by the Cochise County Concerned Citizens, was also attended by reps of EURO, Nazi-in-exile David Duke's group, and the Ku Klux Klan, some of them being asked to leave after their flyers started popping up on car windshields, according to the attendees at least.
This meeting was held one day after two Arizona ranchers on horseback and armed with high power hunting rifles shot and critically wounded five undocumented Mexican workers attempting to cross the border near Sasabe, Arizona. Attendees of the meeting were in full support of this action and suggested more of the same. There was even a proposal to place land mines along the pathways the immigrants take. Over the next two years, Barnett and other ranchers, promoting themselves as protecting their property, have searched and detained anyone they suspect to be illegal immigrants. They have even gone off their property onto the highway to do so. Spencer has left California to set up shop in Sierra Vista, Arizona and take part in the activity and has been encouraging others to do so. This has become a concern for the local authorities who view this as not only vigilantism, but also, as Pima County public defender Isabel Garcia noted, a green light for every racist in the country to go out and live out their fantasies of shooting immigrants. She is right. The Stormfront website has been buzzing about supporting them on one thread in their forum, and Hal Turner has had on his radio show representatives of a website in Texas supporting the vigilante ranchers.
Garcia is also co-chair of the Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, a group that has been fighting human rights violations in Arizona, especially as it pertains to Mexican nationals. This, not to mention in no small part her ethnicity as well, has meant Spencer making her a target calling her a Mexican agent and writing a letter to the Pima County Administrator demanding her resignation. It is doubtful he will get it, but it looks good on his website, and he will more than likely continue on with this campaign for a while.
Spencer is someone who should have been in this Gallery a long time ago. It is not those crossing the borders that are the problem, it is those that cannot fathom those of another culture asserting themselves in this country. Those people are losing badly and they know it. As they fall further into the abyss, they intend to cause as much damage as they can before they go completely. Spencer and others like him should be met each time they try to.