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On the American Patrol website and in self-produced videos, the group rails against Mexican immigrants, accusing them of bringing to the U.S. crime, drugs and squalor and of practicing 鈥渋mmigration via the birth canal.鈥� Mexicans, in the words of group founder Glenn Spencer, are a 鈥渃ultural cancer鈥� following a secret plan, the Plan de Aztl谩n, to complete 鈥渓a reconquista鈥� (the reconquest, or takeover) of the American Southwest, which was once controlled by Spain and/or Mexico.

In Its Own Words

鈥淎n invasion is spreading across America like wildfire, bringing gangs, drugs and an alien culture into the very heartland of America.鈥�
鈥� Voice of Citizens Together video, 鈥淚mmigration: Threatening the Bonds of Our Union,鈥� 1999

鈥淎 misguided immigration policy and a hostile force on our border are threatening the bonds of our union. If she is to survive, America needs leaders who will fight for her. Leaders who will control our border. Leaders who will repel invaders. Leaders who will put an end to the cultural cancer which is eating at the very heart of our nation. America and her western civilization must be rescued if she is to make her date with destiny in the twenty first century.鈥�
鈥斕�听听 Voice of Citizens Together video, 鈥淚mmigration: Threatening the Bonds of Our Union,鈥� 1999

鈥淎mericans, especially white Americans, should get out of California 鈥� now, before it is too late to salvage the equity they have in their homes and the value of their businesses.鈥�
鈥� Glenn Spencer, 鈥淲hite Fight or Flight,鈥� American Patrol website, 2003

Background

Glenn Spencer, one of the harder line anti-immigrant ideologues now operating, founded Voice of Citizens Together (VCT, which is more commonly known, like one of his websites and his radio show, as American Patrol) in 1992. According to a 2005 article in LA Weekly, Spencer claims that the sight of 鈥淢exicans鈥� in the Rodney King riots 鈥渢earing down [his] old neighborhood鈥� prompted him to start Valley Citizens Together as a way to bring attention to the growing threat of illegal immigration. The name was later changed to Voice of Citizens Together to broaden the group鈥檚 appeal. Later, the American Patrol (AP) name was added; today, that name is much more commonly used than Voice of Citizens Together.

Riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, Spencer led VCT/AP into a loose federation of groups under the banner of 鈥淪ave Our State鈥� to lobby for the passage of California's Proposition 187, which would have denied educational and other benefits to illegal immigrants and their children. Although it passed in 1994, Prop 187 was stalled for years in the courts and effectively killed in 1998 by the incoming Gov. Gray Davis.
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It was later that year that VCT/AP 鈥� along with Barbara Coe鈥檚 hard-line California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) and the better-known Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)鈥� began working with the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens听 (CCC). Coe, Spencer and Rick Oltman, then FAIR鈥檚 western regional representative, all came to Cullman, Ala., to speak at a 1998 anti-immigrant rally hosted by the CCC, a group that regularly spews vitriol at black people (鈥渁 retrograde species of humanity鈥�). Also attending was an unrobed Alabama Klansman. The event, held to protest a swelling population of Mexican workers in the region, ended with the arrest of one of the rally鈥檚 organizers, charged with violating a local ordinance regulating outdoor fires by burning a Mexican flag. It was seen as an early indicator of the mixing of white supremacists and other extremists with more 鈥渕ainstream鈥� nativist elements.

VCT/AP uses its website, American Patrol Report, and self-produced videos like 鈥淭reachery and Treason in America鈥� and 鈥淐onquest of Aztl谩n鈥� to vilify Mexicans, deride so-called fifth-column Latinos, and rant about the allegedly long-planned Mexican invasion of the American Southwest. On the site, Spencer attacked Mario Obledo, a leading Latino activist and recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as 鈥淧inche [a slang Spanish term often translated as 鈥渨orthless鈥� or 鈥渇------鈥漖 Cockroach and 1998 A------听of the Year.鈥� A cartoon character was depicted urinating on Obledo鈥檚 picture. (Bizarrely, Spencer later denied to reporters that the site had ever carried such a caricature.) Spencer posts material on his site from such men as H. Millard, an infamous columnist for the racist Council of Conservative Citizens who once bemoaned the 鈥渟limy brown mass of glop鈥� that immigration and interracial families were making of the U.S. population.

VCT/AP鈥檚 videos push racist, anti-Latino conspiracy theories. Its video, 鈥淚mmigration: Threatening the Bonds of Our Union,鈥� which was sent to every member of Congress, purports to prove that the Mexican government and Mexican-Americans are conspiring to take over the American Southwest and create the nation of Aztl谩n. 鈥淪ome scoff at the idea of a Mexican plan of conquest,鈥� says the video (which also features a scuffle between VCT and anti-racist activists). The video then proceeds with an assortment of sound bites from Latino activists and Mexican officials 鈥� including references to 鈥渓a reconquista鈥� 鈥� that 鈥減rove鈥� that there is a Mexican plot to break the Southwestern states away. A 鈥渉ostile force on our border,鈥� the narrator warns in grim tones, is engaging in 鈥渄emographic war鈥� against the United States. 鈥淢exico is moving to capture the American Southwest.鈥�

Under the banner of America Patrol, Spencer also ran a weekly radio show that aired in several cities in the late 1990s. On it, he hosted a series of extremist guests, including Kevin MacDonald, a California professor who accuses Jews of pursuing an immigration policy specifically intended to dilute and weaken the white population of America.

Thanks to groups like VCT/AP, variations of the Aztl谩n conspiracy theory are now widespread on the American radical right and in the much larger nativist movement. Columnists like Sam Francis, the late editor of the Council of Conservative Citizens鈥� Citizen Informer, have spread the theory throughout the radical right. And MSNBC news commentator and close Francis friend Pat Buchanan, a white nationalist, has helped to more widely publicize variations of the theory, as have other 鈥渕ainstream鈥� commentators like CNN鈥檚 Lou Dobbs.

In 2002, Spencer abandoned California for Cochise County, Ariz., joining several other anti-immigrant activists including Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox, who have relocated to the southern border. (In a 2003 essay, 鈥淲hite Fight or Flight,鈥� Spencer suggested that white people 鈥渟hould get out of California 鈥� now, before it is too late to salvage the equity they have in their homes and the value of their businesses.鈥�) Setting up operations in the Pueblo del Sol subdivision in Sierra Vista, Ariz., Spencer created American Border Patrol (ABP), a private organization that would serve as a 鈥渟hadow Border Patrol.鈥� (Although it has its own website, ABP is essentially an Arizona extension of his California group, VCT/AP.) Using high-tech sensors, infrared video-cameras mounted on model airplanes, and 鈥渃itizens鈥� roaming the often mountainous terrain on ATVs, Spencer鈥檚 operation was designed to embarrass the federal government into fully militarizing the border by capturing images of undocumented workers on film and uploading them to the American Border Patrol website for all to see.