Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR) is one of the most active state-based anti-immigrant groups in the country. It has received significant logistical and financial backing from national anti-immigrant groups for its state-wide ballot initiative campaigns to prevent Oregon from issuing drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants and attempting to overturn Oregon’s sanctury law. OFIR’s close ties to some elected officials in the state lend it credibility despite its leaders’ well documented history of attacking immigrants.
About
- OFIR was founded in 2000 and is currently based in the town of McMinnville, but conducts most of its meetings and activities in Salem, Oregon’s capital.
- OFIR’s current leader is Cynthia Kendoll, but many of its co-founders, Jim Ludwick, and Elizabeth Van Staaveren are all still very active with the group.
- The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) helped to build and coordinate a network of state-based anti-immigrant groups throughout the 2000’s which included OFIR. OFIR’s co-founder Frank Brehm thanked FAIR in 2001, stating, “In speaking with a number of members over the past week, they, like me, felt re-energized in the cause of immigration reform by your presentation and use of dialogue to assist the group in formulating strategy.”
- OFIR’s website claims the group believes the government must protect its citizens first and that all immigration laws on the books should be enforced. OFIR’s website also notes that it agrees with the following statement from FAIR, “America has reached a point where perpetual growth cannot realistically continue within limited space,” and “without common sense limitations on immigration and the resulting population growth, virtually every social cause is a lost cause.”
- OFIR’s first forays into activism targeted day-labor centers in the state, in partnership with the Oregon chapter of the vigilante Minutemen Civil Defence Corps, a nationwide group that was very active in the mid 2000s.
- OFIR has always made it a priority to cultivate relationships with elected officials. The group has a close relationship with Rep. Kim Thatcher dating back to a 2006 OFIR rally at which Thatcher spoke. Elected officials including Thatcher and Sal Esquivel served as “chief petitioners” for OFIR’s drivers license ballot initiative.
- In 2013, following a successful legislative effort to grant drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants, OFIR launched a signature drive in an attempt to overturn the law by referednum. A political action committee named Protect Oregon Drivers Licenses (PODL) was established and with major financial support from national anti-immigrant groups and wealthy activists, OFIR was able to gather enough signatures to qualify a ballot measure for the 2014 elections. Oregon residents voted to overturn the driver’s license bill, which was hailed as a major win for OFIR and the broader anti-immigrant movement.
- In January 2016, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) filed a motion on behalf of its client, OFIR, to intervene and dismiss a lawsuit against the outcome of the 2014 ballot measure, which overturned the state’s law to expand drivers licenses to undocumented immirgants. Founded within the Federation for American Immigration Reform, IRLI serves as the legal arm of the anti-immigrant movement.
- OFIR attempted to build upon its 2014 success by targeting Oregon’s long standing sanctuary state law, which prevents the use of state resources to detain undocumented immigrants, in 2018. With continued logistical and financial support from FAIR (amounting to almost $200,000) and Tanton’s U.S. Inc., OFIR again gathered enough signatures for their “Stop Oregon Sanctuary Cities” campaign to qualify as a ballot measure. Three state elected officials joined OFIR’s campaign as “chief petitioners”: Rep. Mike Nearman, Rep. Greg Barreto, and Rep. Esquivel. But this time, nearly two thirds of Oregon voters rejected OFIR’s attempt to overturn the law, much to the chagrin of the group.
- In the six months after the 2018 election, OFIR actively opposed a number of pro-immigrant bills in the legislature, specifically focusing on providing drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants and prohibiting courts from inquiring into defendant’s immigration status.
Anti-immigrant Views
- In a 2014 interview, Kendoll castigated immigrants as a whole, “We are told all the time that people come here and want to become Americans. I don’t think they’re interested in becoming U.S. citizens. It’s just an organized assault on our culture.”
- OFIR co-founder Elizabeth Van Staaveren routinely attacks immigrants in letters published in local media outlets. In 2016 she wrote, “‘Refugees’ are a mixed group, and may include genuine refugees, adventurists, economic migrants, terrorists, criminals and con artists.” A June 2018 piece she penned in the Portland Tribune was titled, “Immigrants the cause of many ills.”
- Kendoll is a regular at events put on by national anti-immigrant groups including the Writers Workshop organized by the Social Contract Press, FAIR’s Hold Their Feet to the Fire annual event, and border tours organized by both FAIR and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Jessica Vaughan of CIS traveled to Oregon to address the group in 2017.
- In 2015, OFIR invited Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to be the keynote speaker at a rally in Salem, Oregon.
- Richard LaMountain, another OFIR member and former leader once submitted a letter about Iraqi refugees to the racist tabloid American Free Press, a publication founded by prominent anti-Semite Willis Carto. Following a decision by Portland Community College to host a White History Month to shine the spotlight on white privilege, LaMountain wrote in the Portland Tribune, “Over the past half-century, American governments, colleges and businesses have instituted aggressive ‘diversity,’ affirmative-action and minority set-aside policies. These give citizens and even non-citizens of color preferences for educations, jobs and promotions over the very citizens PCC alleged are ‘privileged’ by ‘whiteness.’”
- LaMountain has contributed to a number of far-right outlets including the racist VDARE website founded by English white nationalist Peter Brimelow and Middle American News, a tabloid that routinely published the works of white nationalists such as Sam Francis.
- OFIR’s current secretary Lyneil Vandermolen criticized the city of Wilsonville in 2017 for signing a statement of inclusivity on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, claiming, “I think that it carries a subtext that most Americans are a bunch of closet racists, bigots, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes and now there’s even a pregnancy phobia, because you mentioned it there. I don’t think that we need the shaming.” In 2009, she claimed that Latinos and Muslims, “are interested in assimilating us.”
- In 2014, OFIR’s anti-immigrant rally was attended by members of the white nationalist American Freedom Party (AFP).
Anti-immigrant Activity
- In response to the move by lawmakers to push for drivers licenses for Oregon’s undocumented population, Cynthia Kendoll told the Willamette Week, “The idea of providing a driver license to a person that is in the country illegally is just as repulsive to voters today as it was in 2014. Kill this bill.”
- A number of current OFIR officers and co-founders testified in opposition to a bill prohibiting courts from inquiring into a defendant’s immigration status at a House hearing in Salem on March 18, 2019. A day later, Cynthia Kendoll remarked to The Oregonian, “Oregon legislators, once again, are going out of their way to shield those that have entered our country illegally.”
- In April of 2019, President Trump threatened to relocate undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities, prompting Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to criticize the proposed move. In response, OFIR stated, “Oregonians for Immigration Reform is opposed to illegal immigration, it’s farcical how Oregon law and sanctuary cities put the rights of illegal immigrants above legal residents.”
- When Oregon Governor Kate Brown refused to send her national guard troops to the border in 2018, OFIR secretary Lyneil Vandermolen wrote in The Oregonian, “Gov. Kate Brown’s refusal to allow the Oregon National Guard to help stop the strangely spontaneous column of dubious refugees marching through Mexico to forcibly storm our border is an example of her contempt for the rule of law. Her apparent indifference to the likelihood of terrorists or smugglers embedded in the crowd is intolerable.”
- Since its founding, OFIR has attempted to coax environmentalists in Oregon into taking a stance against immigration. The OFIR website introduction reads, “Oregonians for Immigration Reform works to stop illegal immigration as well as reduce legal immigration to a more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable level here in Oregon and across the United States.” In 2017, the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club criticized OFIR prompting a response by Richard LaMountain who wrote, “One can’t be both pro-environment and pro-illegal immigration.”