Arkansas immigration lobbyist tied to alleged hate groups
 
By DAVID HAMMER The Associated Press 1/26/2005, 7:52 p.m. CT

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Joe McCutchen of Fort Smith, a self-described
"one-man band against illegal immigration" who lobbies for a bill filed Wednesday
in the Arkansas Legislature, was immediately tied to allegedly racist
organizations by a leading hate-group tracker Southern Poverty Law
Center.
Sens. Jim Holt, R-Springdale, and Denny Altes, R-Fort Smith, filed the
Arkansas Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, which would require
stricter proof of citizenship for voter registration and forbid public assistance
for non-citizens unless mandated by the federal government. The bill also
requires state and local authorities to report illegal aliens to federal
immigration officials.
Holt introduced McCutchen on Friday as the head of Protect Arkansas Now,
a lobbying group modeled after Protect Arizona Now, the lobbyists for a
similar immigration law in Arizona that passed by referendum last     November.

McCutchen denied Southern Poverty Law Center's claims Wednesday that he
was a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, but acknowledged that
he wrote about his campaign to tighten immigration laws in the February
2000 edition of "American Renaissance," identified as a "hate sheet" by the
racism watchdog group.

He said he had never heard of "American Renaissance," but recognized his
letter to its editor appealing for money for his campaign to help unseat
then-Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., who eventually lost the 2000
election and became President Bush's energy secretary. McCutcheon said "American Renaissance" was one of many publications and organizations on a list of donors to efforts to limit immigration, although his political action
committee was essentially self-funded and received only about $5,000
from contributions.

McCutchen spread much of his anti-Abraham, immigration-limiting message
by flying a sign-toting plane over Michigan and Michigan State football
games.

At the time, Abraham was a leading proponent of expanding entry visas to
foreign high-tech workers. McCutchen said Wednesday that the
Arab-American politician's work against immigration-limiting measures had helped the country become "a third-world dumping ground."

McCutchen also acknowledged participating in a 2001 anti-immigration
forum in North Carolina, sponsored by the Council of Conservative Citizens,
which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a successor of the old White
Citizens Council. In a 2001 CCC publication, McCutchen is identified as a member, but he said Wednesday that the only organizations he's ever belonged to are four Masonic orders and the American Airplane Pilots Association.

McCutchen said that after participating in the 2001 forum with
self-described racial separatist Virginia Abernethy, who later became
chairwoman of Protect Arizona Now, he decided to break all ties with
CCC.

"I decided this wasn't my schtick," he said. "I'm strictly working on an
illegal immigration basis, and they're in other areas. I'm strictly
looking for the stability of this country and upholding the rule of law."
McCutchen said he resented having to make such a disclaimer, but said
he's been careful to point out that people who want to tighten laws against
illegal immigration "are not bigots, xenophobes, racists or
anti-Semites."
At the same time, he bristled at the suggestion that any
anti-immigration advocate could be racist and referred to the current immigration
situation as "a Mexican invasion."

"We don't hate Mexicans who break in here illegally, even though they're
wrong. And this is not about legal immigration, even though I feel the
boat's filling up," McCutchen said. "This is about my di