Nativist group urges members to send used underwear to detained immigrants and Obama

The leader of a U.S. anti-immigrant group is urging followers to mail used underwear to undocumented workers, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Right Wing Watch reported that William Gheen of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) said that he wants to “send the illegals and DC politicians a message."

Gheen was reacting to a plea by the Department of Homeland Security for tens of thousands of pairs of clean men's underwear for the flood of recent immigration detainees being housed at detention facilities across the country.

The story was picked up by Breitbart News and has become this week's outrage for the far-right to fume over.

"We're talking about illegal foreign infiltrators, not human beings," wrote a commenter at one message board.

In a thread posted Wednesday morning at ALIPAC's website, Gheen wrote, "Instead of using our tax money to buy illegals 42,000 pairs of new underwear, we would like to send the illegals and DC politicians a message by mailing them our used underwear, and some of our pairs are in really bad shape due to the bad economy and all of the jobs illegal immigrants are taking from Americans."

Something must be done, he wrote, to stop the "new surge of illegal immigrants crossing America's borders, enticed by promises of immigration reform amnesty."

In the last three years, the number of children trying to cross the border illegally into the United States has tripled. Many are fleeing violence and instability in Central America. Some are coming with their parents, others are coming alone. In recent months, detention centers across the country have become flooded with young refugees, foreign nationals who organizations like ALIPAC believe should be forcibly deported from this country.

ALIPAC is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Gheen and ALIPAC have been vilified even by other anti-immigration group leaders as racists.

Jim Gilchrist -- founder of far-right border patrol activists the Minutemen -- wrote in an email that Gheen and his cohorts are "incurable racists who limit activist participation to only white persons, bigots.”

Gheen lashed out at the SPLC in an angry open letter last April.

"Just because we oppose illegal immigration, any form of amnesty for illegals, and the SPLC," he protested, "does not make us a hate group, racist, or violent despite your efforts to convince others of such lies."

[image of William Gheen via Facebook.com]