The state of hate in the Union

  In his State of the Union address last week, President Trump congratulated his administration for having “taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.”

  It certainly was historic in October when Trump became the first sitting president to give the keynote address at an annual summit hosted by an anti-LGBT hate group, the Family Research Council.

  And it was historic when his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, issued religious freedom guidance eroding protections for LGBT people after he consulted with another anti-LGBT hate group, the Alliance Defending Freedom.

  But it was an anti-immigrant hate group, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), whose talking points laced the State of the Union address last week.

  CIS presents itself as an independent think tank, but it began as a project of the anti-immigrant hate group Federation for American Immigration Reform and was founded by white nationalist John Tanton.

  CIS frequently manipulates its findings to achieve results that further its anti-immigrant agenda. Last fall, for instance, CIS staffer Jessica Vaughn published a report exaggerating how many people would enter America via a process that CIS calls “chain migration” — the hate group’s preferred phrase to stigmatize the idea of immigrant families reuniting.

  The phrase “chain migration” appeared twice in last week’s State of the Union, alongside dangerous and hateful misinformation about immigrants taken directly from CIS talking points.

  Given the State of the Union’s author, that should be no surprise.

  Senior adviser Stephen Miller, who took the lead writing the speech, served for years as an aide to Jeff Sessions, who has himself endorsed CIS’ work, spoken on a CIS panel, and taken whispered counsel from a former CIS staffer during immigration debates on the Senate floor.

  When Sessions hired Miller fresh from Duke University, he did so at the recommendation of anti-Muslim extremist David Horowitz. Now in the White House, Miller has been claimed and praised by extremists for advocating policy on hate group wish lists and pushing anti-immigrant narratives like the one we heard in the State of the Union.

  "For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans,” Trump said, reading Miller’s text off a teleprompter.

  But studies consistently show that immigrants help — not hurt — the U.S. economy.

  “Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives,” Trump said — despite study after study finding immigrants commit crime at rates lower than native-born Americans, not higher.

  Hate groups should not have a seat at the table on matters of national policy or influence what talking points to highlight in the State of the Union.

  But thanks to Stephen Miller, they have exactly that.

  This article was published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights organization.