The Mississippi Business Journal reported yesterday that nativist lobby group FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is pushing Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to include language in the economic stimulus bill to "ensure that the jobs created go to legal U.S. workers only."

FAIR said the Senate legislation contains no protections to ensure that those jobs will be filled by U.S. workers. The bill omits key protections contained in the stimulus bill approved by the House last month. Absent from the bill are reauthorization of the E-Verify program, which will expire March 6 if it is not reauthorized, and a requirement that all companies benefiting from taxpayer-funded projects use E-Verify to ensure that the jobs created are not filled by illegal aliens.

"The Nativist Lobby: Three Faces of Intolerance," a report released earlier this month by the Southern Poverty Law Center, identifies FAIR as one of the "network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton, the 'puppeteer' of the nativist movement and a man with deep racist roots."

SPLC has designated FAIR as a hate group, and Tanton, a retired ophthalmologist and founder of the Social Contract Press (which the SPLC calls "racist," due to its "anti-Latino and white supremacists writings"), sits on the organization's board.

The MBJ story concludes:

"It is critical that Sen. Cochran fight to include these two vital protections in the final version of the stimulus bill. Without reauthorization of E-Verify and a requirement that companies receiving stimulus money use the system, billions of taxpayer dollars could wind up creating jobs in Mississippi for illegal aliens instead of legal U.S. workers."