John Tanton

Social Contract Press: Publisher
Pro English: Founder
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR): Co-founder
NumbersUSA: Founder

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Institutional Affiliations

Government Service

Corporate Connections/Business Interests

Education

Highlights & Quotes

John Tanton is widely recognized as the leading figure in the anti-immigration and "official English" movements in the United States. Initially, Tanton's public policy advocacy work was driven by his commitment to zero population growth and environmental conservation. By the late 1970s, however, this concern about the environment and population growth evolved into a crusade against immigration flows into the United States, particularly from Latin American and Caribbean nations. At the time that the New Right, Christian Right, and neoconservative political tendencies were mobilizing new constituencies against center-left politics in the United States, Tanton played a central role in mobilizing backlash sentiment against immigrants. Tapping his base in environmental and population control organizations such as the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, and Zero Population Growth, Tanton in 1979 cofounded what has become the most influential anti-immigrant policy institute in the nation: Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). In 1983, he also cofounded the most influential "official English" or English-only organization, U.S. English.

Today, Tanton stands in the center of a web of anti-immigrant and official English groups. As the founder and publisher of Social Contract Press, Tanton has published books that have helped shaped a nationalist ideology focused on the threat of immigrants to the white, English-speaking population. Social Contract books also stoke fears about immigrants taking over the United States, with research that highlights the rapid rise of Spanish-speaking residents and related socioeconomic problems, while ignoring research that points to the positive contributions of immigrants. In addition to FAIR, where he still is a board member, Tanton has been a central player in an array of anti-immigrant, nationalist groups and institutes, including Pro English, U.S. Inc., Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), U.S. English, and Numbers USA. Funding for these and other organizations in which Tanton is a key figure, often flows through the organization, U.S. Inc. (7) (8)

According to Tolerance.org, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center: "The organized anti-immigration 'movement' is almost entirely the handiwork of one man, Michigan activist John. H. Tanton." In June 2002, it listed thirteen groups that formed part of the "loose-knit Tanton network." The following groups were founded and funded (through U.S. Inc.) by Tanton: Center for Immigration Studies, Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA, Pro English, Social Contract Press, U.S. English, and U.S. Inc. Others, such as American Immigration Control Foundation, American Patrol/Voices of Citizens Together, Californians for Population Stabilization, ProjectUSA, are part of the Tanton network because their funding has been channeled through U.S. Inc. Another organization cited by Tolerance.Org, as part of the network is Population-Environment Balance, because Tanton had joined its board. (1)

Replying to a critique by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Tanton wrote: "Having suffered the slings, arrows, barbs, insults, cheap shots, and body blows that have come as a result of taking a position in opposition to mass immigration, I would certainly not have reservations about claiming credit for being the guy secretly manipulating U.S. immigration policy." He concludes on an ironic note, saying that if he were the powerful puppeteer of the immigration restrictionist movement then why have immigration levels to the United States been steadily rising since he started his fight for tighter controls on immigration flows. (11)

According to Tanton, he is not against immigration but is an opponent of mass or massive immigration because it is not in his self-interest or that of other U.S. citizens. "Most Americans," writes Tanton, "oppose mass immigration because mass immigration is not in their interests. They are guilty of looking out for themselves and their perceived interests-exactly as the immigrants and their supporters do." Elaborating on the self-interest argument, Tanton explains. "Americans do not see the loss of their jobs or wages to immigrants to be in their interests. They do not see the crowding of their children's schools with large numbers of kids who have language and other difficulties to be in their interests. They do not see rapid cultural and linguistic transformations of their neighborhoods to be in their interests." (11)

Tanton is a retired ophthalmologist from Petoskey, Michigan. While in medical school in the late 1950s, Tanton started studying the population issue, which, mixed with his concerns for the environment, prompted him to become involved with the Sierra Club. A major cause of environmental distress, in his opinion, was increased population. In 1970, Tanton attended the Earth Day meeting of the Congress on Optimum Population and the Environment (COPE). At this meeting, he began associating with leading figures in population control advocacy, including authors Bill Paddock, Paul Ehrlich, and Garrett Hardin. (2)

Tanton became the chairman of Sierra Club's Population Committee in 1971. Two years later, he was on the staff of Zero Population Growth (ZPG). In 1975, he became president of ZPG, a position he held until 1978. The surge in the zero population growth movement and concern about population increase in the United States steadily declined in the late 1970s as it became accepted that population growth rates had fallen sharply since the baby boom years following World War Two.

Tanton gradually changed his focus from population control and the environment to immigration issues. Along with other leading ZPG members who regarded immigration control as the main solution to population control in the United States, Tanton left ZPG in 1978 and in 1979 created FAIR. According to two observers of this split, "Their idea was that FAIR would take no stand on abortion and other controversial family planning issues in order to attract a wider constituency which would work for immigration reform not only for environmental reasons, but for economic relief for the working poor and taxpayers, for social cohesion, and for national security." In contrast, ZPG evolved to focus more on gender-related education, women's issues, and family planning than on population restriction policies as a solution to environmental problems. (9)

Along with a few other FAIR board members, in the early 1980s Tanton founded a nationalist organization called WITAN-short for the Old English term "witenagemot," meaning "council of wise men." In 1986, Tanton signed a memo that went to WITAN members that highlighted the supremacist bent of Tanton and FAIR. (7)(8) The memo charged that Latin American immigrants brought a culture of political corruption with them to the United States and that they were unlikely to involve themselves in civil life. He raised the alarm that they could become the majority group in U.S. society. What's more, he asked: "Can homo contraceptivus compete with homo progenitiva?" Answering his own rhetorical question, Tanton wrote that "perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!" According to Tanton, "In California 2030, the non-Hispanic Whites and Asians will own the property, have the good jobs and education, speak one language and be mostly Protestant and 'other.' The Blacks and Hispanics will have the poor jobs, will lack education, own little property, speak another language and will be mainly Catholic." Furthermore, Tanton raised concerns about the "educability" of Hispanics. (10) In 1988 the media published the Tanton memo, causing a number of former supporters of U.S. English to cut ties with Tanton, including Walter Cronkite. (7)(8)

Other fallout from the publication of the WITAN memo included the simultaneous resignations of Linda Chavez, the executive director of U.S. English, and board members John Tanton and Gerda Bitrales. Chavez, who pleaded ignorance about reactionary ideological and funding sources for U.S. English, later founded the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes affirmative action programs in universities and bilingual education programs. (12) Tanton and Bitrales later founded ProEnglish, another official English organization.

(1) "The Network," Tolerance.org
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_hate.jsp?id=557

(2) Tanton, John. Tribute to Garrett Hardin by John Tanton. Garrett Hardin Society
http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/tributes/tr_tanton_2003oct.html

(3) About Us. The Social Contract
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/aboutus.html

(4) Pro-English Board of Directors. Pro-English
http://www.pro-english.com/board/tanton.html

(5) FAIR Board of Directors Bios. FAIR
http://www.fairus.org/About/About.cfm?ID=356&c=21

(6) John and Mary Lou Tanton's Resumes. Social Contract Press
www.thesocialcontract.com/tantonresume.html

(7) "The Puppeteer," Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center, Summer 2002
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=180

(8) Hate in the News: The Puppeteer. Tolerance.org. June 18, 2002
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_print.jsp?id=554

(9) Kolankiewicz, Leon and Roy Beck, Forsaking Fundamentals: The Environmental Establishment Abandons U.S. Population Stabilization, Center for Immigration Studies, March 2001
http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/forsaking/why.html

(10) Tanton, John. Memo to WITAN IV Attendees from John Tanton, Southern Poverty Law Center
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=125

(11) John Tanton, "The Puppeteer Replies," January 22, 2003, The Social Contract Press
www.thesocialcontract.com/puppeteer.html

(12) Linda Chavez, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 197-206