IRLI Applauds and Supports Libel Suit Against the Southern Poverty Law Center, Amazon, and GuideStar

August 24, 2017

Shining a light on Anti-Free Speech, Anti-Borders, Anti-American Globalist Organizations

(Washington, D.C.) – This week, the Evangelical Christian organization, D. James Kennedy Ministries, filed a major defamation lawsuit in Alabama district court against the highly controversial, anti-free speech organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), along with its enabling partners, online shopping behemoth, Amazon, and non-profit data aggregator, GuideStar USA. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), a non-profit advocate for America-First immigration policies, has been routinely victimized by the SPLC’s politicized “anti-hate” campaign and we fully support DJK Ministries’ in all their litigation efforts.

According to DJK Ministries’ complaint, both Amazon and GuideStar have used and republicized the SPLC’s labelling of the faith-based group as a “hate organization”, an act which they claim is seriously damaging its outreach efforts. The unquestioning application of SPLC’s “research” has recently been taken up by other large tech corporations, such Pay Pal Holdings, Inc. and Twitter, Inc., and is routinely used by legacy media outlets, such as CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

IRLI has long had dealings with the SPLC and knows well the abusive tactics of the group’s principals: Morris Dees, Richard Cohen, Mark Potok, and Heidi Beirich. In 2007, 28 years after its founding, IRLI’s parent organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), became the unprovoked victim of Morris and company when it became targeted as a so-called “anti-immigrant” organization, among other things. The move was specifically designed to neutralize opposition to the McCain-Kennedy open-borders amnesty bill then being debated in Congress.

IRLI recently released a Department of Justice disciplinary letter of reprimand (attached here) against an SPLC attorney for filing a court brief on the SPLC’s behalf that engaged in derogatory name-calling against FAIR. The letter called the attacks unprofessional and frivolous behavior that abused the briefing process and failed to aid the administration of justice.

IRLI’s Executive Director and General Counsel, Dale L. Wilcox, commented, “We fully support DJK Ministries in its defamation lawsuit. The SPLC’s business model is built on identity politics and sowing discord. As a result, the group has to keep attacking or they risk becoming irrelevant. Why else would Mark Potok and company routinely refuse to actually debate their opponents?” Wilcox continued, “Recently, numerous organizations deemed unacceptable by open-borders globalists and the cultural-left elite became fallaciously associated with certain violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. The coordinated exploitation of a tragedy by the SPLC, the media elite, and the tech industry, is 100% about politics, it is unspeakably shameful, and it simply cannot go unchallenged.”

For additional information, contact: Jade Haney • 202-232-5590 • [email protected]