XPost: alt.gossip.celebrities, alt.politics.democrats.d, sac.general   
   XPost: alt.rush-limbaugh   
   From: jane.fonda.socialist.report@cnn.com   
      
   The Center for Immigration Studies, one of the country’s most   
   visible anti-immigration groups, has taken its feud with a   
   nonprofit civil rights organization to court, alleging that its   
   inclusion on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of known   
   hate groups violates a federal law originally passed to target   
   the mob.   
      
   “SPLC and its leaders have every right to oppose our work on   
   immigration, but they do not have the right to label us a hate   
   group and suggest we are racists,” said Mark Krikorian,   
   executive director of Center for Immigration Studies. “The   
   Center for Immigration Studies is fighting back against the SPLC   
   smear campaign and its attempt to stifle debate through   
   intimidation and name-calling.”   
      
   In the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the   
   District of Columbia, the Center for Immigration Studies alleges   
   that the group’s inclusion on SPLC’s list amounts to wire fraud,   
   and that it has cost CIS at least $10,000 in material damages.   
   The complaint also alleges that the purported fraud violates the   
   Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly   
   known as RICO, a federal law originally written to target   
   organized crime but now most frequently used to sue businesses   
   over false statements transmitted through the mail or   
   electronically.   
      
   “This is a scheme to falsely call CIS a hate group,” Howard   
   Foster, the Center for Immigration Studies’ attorney, told The   
   Daily Beast. “They’re never going to stop attacking CIS as a   
   hate group.”   
      
   The complaint, filed on Wednesday morning, alleges that the SPLC   
   has maintained the group’s presence on its list of hate groups   
   “despite the Defendants’ knowledge that CIS did not fit SPLC’s   
   ‘hategroup definition.’” Naming Richard Cohen, president of the   
   Southern Poverty Law Center, and Heidi Beirich—who oversees the   
   SPLC’s annual survey of U.S. hate groups—the group seeks   
   financial damages and an injunction to bar the SPLC “from   
   further racketeering activity.”   
      
   “CIS regularly opposes higher levels of immigration for sound   
   public policy reasons, not because of any animus toward   
   immigrants as human beings,” the group said in a release. “CIS   
   hopes this lawsuit will cause Mr. Cohen and Ms. Beirich to turn   
   their attention to actual cases of racial animus.”   
      
   Despite its fiery language, experts on RICO told The Daily Beast   
   that CIS’s complaint may not hold much legal water.   
      
   “There are pretty big issues with this complaint,” said Jeffrey   
   E. Grell, an attorney and expert on racketeering law. “This   
   basically all hinges on them being called a hate group by the   
   SPLC… but an opinion isn’t fraudulent.”   
      
   “It’s just kinda goofy,” Grell continued. “I don’t think it has   
   a lot of merit, mostly because I dont think it’s fraud… The   
   Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t say that [its definition] is   
   the only basis by which you can be defined as a hate group.”   
      
   “There’s so much garbage that gets filed under RICO,” Grell   
   added. “If I was a judge, I would dismiss it.”   
      
   Even the lawyer who wrote the statute told The Daily Beast that   
   the complaint is “slim on details,” particularly for a RICO suit.   
      
   “A quick read says one thing: they are in D.C. asking for   
   damages and an injunction. RICO is not generally thought to   
   contain equity relief,” said Professor G. Robert Blakey, a law   
   professor at Notre Dame Law School and the literal author of the   
   Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, which includes RICO. “Not   
   too thoughtful.”   
      
   The SPLC has included CIS in its watch list of hate groups since   
   2016, following what it called the group’s “repeated circulation   
   of white nationalist and antisemitic writers.”   
      
   “It has a history of making racially inflammatory statements,   
   associating with white nationalists, and circulating the work of   
   racist writers,” Cohen told The Daily Beast. “Its lawsuit is   
   nothing more than a heavy-handed effort to try to silence us   
   from exercising our First Amendment right to express our   
   opinion. We look forward to defending ourselves in court.”   
      
   But the Center for Immigration Studies alleges that it doesn’t   
   fit the SPLC’s stated definition of a hate group, which is   
   described as “an organization that—has beliefs or practices that   
   attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their   
   immutable characteristics.”   
      
   “SPLC knows that CIS is not a hate group, by its own definition,   
   yet it calls it a hate group,” Foster said.   
      
      
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