There Goes the Neighborhood is a weekly series from Imagine 2050 staff highlighting upcoming nativist events.
This week, Republicans in Massachusetts hold a pro-Trump event featuring several speakers with ties to organized nativism.
On Thursday, October 6, the Norfolk County Republican Committee will hold a “Massachusetts Patriots Unity Rally” in Randolph, Massachusetts. The event has been promoted on Facebook to “rally Americans to support the People’s Republican Presidential Nominee, Donald J. Trump.” The committee has invited an “All Star cast of experts” comprising nearly a dozen people. Speakers include several elected officials, Trump campaign surrogates, and conservative activists.
Three speakers also have significant ties to prominent nativist groups:
- Jessica Vaughan of the anti-immigrant think tank Center for Immigration Studies. Vaughan has worked at CIS for over two decades and played a central role in producing disingenuous research that has fueled nativist backlash to meaningful immigration reforms. Vaughan appeared on stage during a Trump campaign town hall event hosted by Sean Hannity in late August. She also spoke to another Massachusetts Republican group last week.
- Sheriff Tom Hodgson, of Bristol County, Massachusetts. Hodgson has been one of the organized anti-immigrant movement’s most strident law enforcement allies. Hodgson has participated in several events organized by the anti-immigrant group Federation for American Immigration Reform, including a July 2014 “fact-finding mission” and previous iterations of FAIR’s “Sheriff Border Summit.” Hodgson has disparaged immigrants as “public safety concerns” and for supposedly “creating public health hazards.”
- Raymond Hanna, the Boston chapter leader of grassroots anti-Muslim group ACT for America. Hanna claims on his LinkedIn profile to have led the Boston ACT chapter since April 2008. Hanna is also president of Christians & Jews United for Israel, which will honor noted anti-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali at an event on October 30th.
For an event ostensibly organized to promote unity, the invited guests of the Norfolk County Republican Committee are awfully suspect.
Additional information on this event and others can be found in the map below. A red star indicates events scheduled for next week.
Know of any nativist events not located on this map? Please contact us or fill out this form: