*UPDATE: APRIL 24, 2023 MEMORANDUM OPINION HERE.

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Statement from D.A. King on behalf of the Dustin Inman Society board of advisors

 

With the words and recommendations of Barbara Jordan as our guide, the Dustin Inman Society has taken an active, pro-enforcement position on immigration since 2005. We are proud to have Americans of all descriptions on our board of advisors and as donors and supporters. As we have repeatedly pointed out, those groups include proud immigrants. It came as quite a surprise to all of us when the disgraced and discredited hucksters at the anti-enforcement SPLC decided to smear us with a ridiculous and easily disproved, false label.

We regard the federal court’s denial of the SPLC’s motion to dismiss our complaint as the first step toward justice for the majority of Americans who demand the right to speak up against the organized crime that is illegal immigration without being smeared and attacked.

It is our often repeated belief that we cannot honor the American tradition of immigration unless and until we unapologetically enforce our immigration laws.

Most people can see the clear difference between advocating for enforcement of immigration laws and somehow hating immigrants or being “anti-immigrant” or anti-immigration. Most Americans can also see the abject absurdity and arrogant desperation in the SPLC’s premise that the Dustin Inman Society and/or the immigrants involved in our work are somehow “anti-immigrant haters.”

A brilliant example of the SPLC’s confidence that they can invent “anti-immigrant hate” without note or penalty is the fact that while they clearly spend considerable time researching our websites, the sleuths at the SPLC chose to ignore a DIS event aimed at drawing a clear line between illegal and legal immigration. Despite a surprise Saturday morning Atlanta snowstorm, “Honoring Immigrants: A pro-enforcement conversation on immigration” took place in early February 2020. The event featured proud immigrant speakers and attendees who made up a veritable rainbow of diversity. We again publicly repeated our pro-enforcement mission statement and goals.

Nevertheless, the Southern Poverty Law Center again put us on their “hate map” depicted as “an anti-immigrant hate group” and told the world we are focused on “vilifying all immigrants” that year and three subsequent years – even while our complaint was pending in federal court.

From public statements on  goals, we think the SPLC means to destroy our non-profit effort here by smearing us with disgusting lies. We’ll see what a jury thinks.

The most recent SPLC financial report shows a net worth of $639 million. $731.9 million. Much of that is apparently banked in off-shore accounts.

To keep our pro-enforcement effort going, my wife and I have two mortgages on the house we purchased in 1984.

We have a GoFundMe page appeal on the Dustin Inman Society website asking for help with legal expenses.

 Being that the SPLC was quite detailed in their 2011 statement to the Associated Press that we don’t fit their own definition of “hate group,” we think a court will recognize that this case is essentially SPLC vs SPLC. We think the SPLC has arrogantly and maliciously concocted “anti-immigrant hate” to marginalize political enemies and to fill their own fund-raising demand because of a real-world supply shortage.

Curious observers may want to check on the timing of the inclusion of the Dustin Inman Society on the 2018 SPLC ‘hate map’ and the SPLC registration to lobby against pro-enforcement legislation that we helped with and supported Georgia – we did.

We also look forward to the SPLC explaining the obvious and handy elasticity of their definition of “anti-immigrant hate group” that, when necessary, evidently includes expansion to guilt by association. We refer to a telling quote from then SPLC senior staffer Heidi Beirich in a 2017 AJC report. “Hearing about this US Inc. connection, I think we at the SPLC have to take a serious look at King’s outfit as possibly a hate group…”

The Beirich remark provides an opportunity to cite one of our favorite amusing, true and useful stories featuring Beirich and the SPLC: “The Southern Poverty Law Center: Part Karl, Part Groucho.”

We wish the Inman family were alive to see the SPLC in a courtroom as defendants.

We look forward to the discovery process. And we note that the SPLC’s hate mongering campaign could never have been taken seriously if not for the collaboration of many incurious “journalists” in American media.

Recommended reading

“Racial discrimination. Sexual harassment. Off-shore accounts. Inflated and biased attacks on “hate.” These are some of the many reasons Americans should mistrust the Southern Poverty Law Center.”  We recommend educational reading on the SPLC in Tyer O’Neil’s 2020 book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

D.A. King

17 April 2023