Leading Latino leaders are criticizing the Fox News website Fox News Latino, saying it lacks credibility among Hispanics by profiting from them even as they are demonized by the conservative parent network known for anti-immigrant coverage.

Since it launched in 2010, Fox News Latino has positioned itself as "the place to go for news that impacts the Latino Community," covering news, politics, entertainment, and other stories through that lens.

"We were skeptical when we heard about this," Inez Gonzalez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said of the creation of Fox News Latino. "Fox News is a big voice in the anti-Latino rhetoric, so we were skeptical. Some of the articles that I have seen have been interesting to me, [but] I think the owners are hypocrites. I think they are totally forgetting there is double speak here.

"They should be called on for their hypocrisy because they are blasting Latinos in English media and courting us in Latino media, hoping no one who is reading it is bilingual. I don't use Fox News Latino as a source. I would not use Fox News as a source because I know their history. I would question their statistics because I know where they are coming from. They're still Fox."

Indeed, the tone of Fox News Latino's coverage of issues like immigration dramatically differs from that of other parts of the Fox News family, which typically adopt a hardline slant.

Last month after President Obama announced that his administration would no longer seek to deport young undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children, Fox News Latino covered the story using the headline "Obama Administration Halts Deportations for Undocumented Children" and featuring a photo of a Latina activist in front of the U.S. Capitol.

By contrast, the Fox Nation website headlined its story on the subject "Obama Administration Bypasses Congress, to Give Immunity, Stop Deporting Younger Illegals" accompanied by a photo of handcuffed young Latinos.

Such disparities in coverage between the Latino-focused website and the rest of the right-wing network are frequent, with other instances including a January 2011 border shooting and last month's Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's immigration law.

Fox News hosts and personalities regularly demonize immigrants, refusing to abandon the slur "illegals" though other outlets have done so. The network also cheerleads controversial immigration laws like those in Arizona and Alabama, and outlandish smears of immigrants.

"Their record will ultimately catch up with them, you can't be a media company and think you are hiding your message," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. "Latinos aren't dumb. They understand who is on their side and who is not."

In April 2011, the New York Times detailed the connections between John Tanton, the notorious kingpin of the current anti-immigrant movement in America, and two anti-immigrant organizations -- the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) -- famous for their powerful influence over immigration-related legislation at the state and federal levels. Despite finding that Tanton "nurtured" FAIR and CIS into power and documenting Tanton's extensive connections to white supremacists, the Times continued to look to these groups for contributions to the immigration debate.

Despite publishing this article on April 17, 2011, and another on April 30, 2011 (explaining that soon after its first piece, Tanton's name was scrubbed from FAIR's list of board members), the Times did not stop citing these organizations -- and the paper's subsequent references to the groups fail to note the organizations' affiliations to Tanton and the pro-white movement, according to a Media Matters analysis of coverage between January 13, 2010, and May 25, 2012.

In fact, after publishing these exposés, the Times cited FAIR and CIS more than 15 times during the next year. Instead of explaining these groups' unsavory connections, the Times opted for more generic characterizations such as "a conservative group" and "a group that seeks reduced immigration," essentially whitewashing the groups' troubling records which the Times had dedicated two articles to exposing.

It's unlikely the Times would cite white nationalist organizations as credible sources for their news stories on immigration policy, so why are they allowing FAIR and CIS a pass?

For details on the methodology and other information in the Media Matters report, click here.

As anti-immigrant legislation has flooded state houses from coast to coast over the past two years -- culminating most notably with the Supreme Court's review of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 -- the nation's print media have given voice to the anti-immigrant special interest groups cheerleading (and in some cases orchestrating) these initiatives. Many of these groups have ties to white nationalist organizations and racists, and at least one has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. These extremist ties have not prevented the nation's most respected newspapers, as well as the Associated Press and Reuters, from citing the institutions as authorities on the immigration debate.

In fact, a Media Matters analysis of news coverage since SB 1070's introduction in January 2010 has discovered that the nation's top five newspapers (New York Times, L.A. Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post), the Associated Press, and Reuters have cited these groups over 250 times. Over that period, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia, among other states, have introduced strict immigration bills that -- by their introduction alone -- have been met with a measure of success.

If print media plays a part in shaping public opinion, isn't it fair to ask whether the normalization of these extremist groups in the pages of America's daily papers has advantaged the ability of anti-immigrant measures to reach fruition?

For details on the methodology and other information in the Media Matters report, click here.

The former chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council's recently disbanded Elections and Public Safety Task Force said most of the committee's work on voting and gun issues probably will not continue elsewhere within ALEC, but said some could be pursued if they have ties to economic issues.

"The criminal justice area has been one where we have had consensus in doing the kinds of things we're doing with justice re-investment and with the things like our smart on crime initiatives and those things I hope don't get damaged by these actions going on now to break up what we've been able to put together," said Republican Texas State Rep. Jerry Madden, former chair of the committee.

Madden made the comments following the announcement last week that ALEC would disband the committee after it drew complaints for its role in promoting NRA-backed gun laws and voter restrictions. ALEC says it will now refocus on economic legislation.

The National Rifle Association, a longtime member of and donor to ALEC, reportedly objected to the change.

The Christian Post reported earlier this week that Madden said ALEC planned to pursue many of the same issues elsewhere within the organization:

During the October 14 broadcast of their Los Angeles-based KFI radio program The John and Ken Show, co-hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou responded to a campaign against their program that resulted in John and Ken being dropped by several prominent advertisers. The National Hispanic Media Coalition, who led an October 13 protest against the show, received written confirmation from advertisers that John and Ken would be dropped, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Kobylt and Chiampou referred to the outcome of the protest as an "economic boycott" and vowed that "nothing on the show is changing. We're going to talk about illegal aliens all we want."

During Thursday's Republican presidential debate hosted by Fox News and Google, moderators looked to anti-immigrant group the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to ask the first question on immigration. Nearly 20,000 questions were reportedly submitted on a variety of topics, but for immigration, Fox chose one by FAIR spokeswoman Kristen Williamson. From the debate:

WILLIAMSON: Struggling U.S. workers continue to compete with millions of illegal aliens. Do you support legislation to require all employers to use E-Verify in order to insure that the people that they hire are actually legally authorized to work in the U.S., and will you impose penalties against employers who continue to hire illegal workers?

FAIR is an anti-immigrant organization considered a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It not only has a history of using extreme, violent, and offensive language directed at undocumented immigrants, but it has extremist ties as well.

The second and last question about immigration submitted by a viewer that Fox chose asked: "Are you going to exert an effort to stop the abuse of U.S. citizens by illegals?"

It's hardly surprising Fox would choose a question on immigration from an extremist group in light of the negative tone it has set in framing the immigration debate. Moreover, considering Fox has a history of advocating for the error-prone and potentially racist E-Verify program, it's also not shocking that the network chose a question that advanced the common anti-immigrant sentiment that undocumented immigrants "compete" with "struggling U.S. workers" -- a sentiment that is simply misplaced.

"The Free Market Won't Let Us Speak"

Richard Spencer, executive director of the National Policy Institute (NPI), was beginning his opening remarks as I settled uneasily into my seat in the back row of a small, brightly lit banquet room. From a podium at the front of the room, the brown-haired young man pointed to a projection of a color-shaded world map that he claimed depicted regional variations in the average Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of indigenous populations.

According to the map, East Asian and European peoples possess the highest IQs while African and Australian indigenous populations possess the lowest. He then switched to a NASA photograph of the world at night, depicting city lights around the globe visible from space. He compared the brightest-lit areas (China, Europe, North America) to the previous map, proclaiming that the brightest localities were also those with the highest IQ.

It was on that note that NPI's national conference, titled Towards a New Nationalism: Immigration and the Future of Western Nations, began. This was the first such event for the fledgling white nationalist organization NPI, a think tank of sorts dedicated to "promot[ing] the American majority's unique historical, cultural, and biological inheritance - and advances policies that, without prejudicing the legitimate rights of others, fearlessly defends our rights...our heritage." Dedicated, in other words, to advancing the interests of the white race.

The event was a first for me as well. I would be, for the first time, experiencing a gathering of white supremacists from such an intimate perspective. Watching, learning, interacting -- I would attempt to sort out what they believe and why and explore the relationship between the white nationalist movement and the more mainstream political spectrum. As a clean-cut white male, my presence wasn't suspicious and the other attendees assumed I shared their views. For my part, I let them assume, and I did my best to blend in.

I had no idea what to expect when I arrived at 9 a.m., but a part of me anticipated swarms of protestors, a strong police presence clashing with private security forces and a raucous racist crowd inside the hall, cheering on some podium-smacking orator bloviating about the evils of the Jewish race and the need to oppress the black community.

Instead, I was greeted jovially upon arrival to a scene that more closely resembled a modest cocktail party, with no security and a few people standing around sipping coffee and discussing literature. I picked up my name tag and glanced at the design -- a photograph of a white family smiling over a white background adjacent to the well-known political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin depicting a severed serpent and the phrase "JOIN, or DIE."

Reading over the conference program, I caught a glimpse of what I was in for from the titles of the speeches to come. They ranged from the blandly predictable - "Is Arizona the Answer?", "Prospects for a Nationalist Right in America"; to the ominously enigmatic - "Apocalypse Now," "Totalitarian Humanism and Mass Immigration," "The Masters of the Universe"; to the truly chill-inducing -- "The Idea and Ideal of the Ethno-State."

Today Fox Nation and the Drudge Report used an out of context headline to mislead readers into thinking that President Obama is looking for ways to circumvent Congress. Fox Nation and Drudge both highlighted a Washington Examiner headline that says "Obama: 'I'd like to work my way around Congress.' "

However, as the Examiner article made clear, immediately after making the comment, which came during a speech at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute 34th Annual Awards Gala, Obama said: "But the fact is, even as we work towards a day when I can sign an immigration bill, we've got laws on the books that have to be upheld." From the speech:

Now, as I mentioned when I was at La Raza a few weeks back, I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own. There are times where -- until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again -- (applause) -- I'd like to work my way around Congress. (Applause.) But the fact is, even as we work towards a day when I can sign an immigration bill, we've got laws on the books that have to be upheld.

From Fox Nation:

In an August 1 blog post for Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace, Paul Hair attacked the U.S. government for deciding to drop deportation proceedings against an undocumented immigrant who married his same-sex U.S. citizen partner (deportations against opposite sex couples are traditionally dropped in such circumstances). Consistent with the course taken by Breitbart and his bloggers on gay rights issues, Hair warned people to "be prepared for the left to open the doors to sodomites from around the world under the guise that they are 'asylum seekers' needing to get away from oppression."

From Hair's piece:

"FoxNews.com published an article on July 1 entitled, "Halt to Deportation of Citizen's Same-Sex Partner Draws Fire" (HT: The Core Report). The article says the executive branch has ignored the law and allowed a foreign invader to remain in our nation, recognizing the male invader's "marriage" to an American man."

"And as leftists always do, they justify this blatant defiance of the law by saying they are correct for doing so."

[...]

"In other words, be prepared for the left to open the doors to sodomites from around the world under the guise that they are 'asylum seekers' needing to get away from oppression. In fact, the left is already using this method. And if you think conservatives are demonized now for opposing the invasion and colonization of America, just think how bad we'll be vilified for, 'Wanting to torture and murder homosexuals all over the world by making them live under oppressive regimes where their lives are even worse than they are here under the Christian Taliban!'"