ARYAN NATIONS DEFLATES ‘SOVEREIGNS’ IN MONTANA

West Virginia headquarters under police
escort, and then gave the SPLC extensive
details of the group’s shady practices.
Then, by December, the always combative
Williams was in similar fights with
two other staffers — Garland DeCoursy
and Michael Oljaca — who had moved to
the compound following Dilloway’s departure.
After Williams allegedly assaulted
DeCoursy in Oljaca’s presence, both
obtained restraining orders against him.
But Williams was arrested twice in one
week for violating those orders and was
asked to stay out of the state until a court
hearing. The local prosecutor said Williams
was under investigation for other possible
crimes, including battery and larceny.
The year also brought what seems
to be the final demise of another neo-
Nazi group, the Aryans Nations, which
has been in trouble since a successful
SPLC lawsuit in 2000 and the death of
its founder in 2004 (see story, p. 22).
Already, the group’s once infamous compound
outside Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, had
been sold, its building burned and its
members split into squabbling factions.
In November, the group’s last self-proclaimed
leader, Morris Gullet, shut down
his organization, which he had based
in Converse, La. Shortly before that,
another former leader, August Kreis III,
was sentenced to 50 years in prison on
three counts of sexually abusing a child.
‘Nativist Extremist’ Groups Dwindling Away
The number of “nativist extremist” groups — organizations that go beyond mere
advocacy to personally confront suspected undocumented immigrants or those who
hire or help them — dropped again last year, falling from 19 to just 17.
But that slight decline was not a reflection of diminishing hatred directed at
immigrants to the United States. What appears to have happened is that figures in
the political mainstream, along with numerous state legislatures, have essentially coopted
the issue, making the nativist extremist groups’ activism unnecessary.
A recent example of that is Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration
and his description of Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. Immigrantbashing,
whether of Latinos or Muslims, has gone mainstream.
The drop last year was the latest since the movement peaked in 2010 with 319
groups. The numbers fell off quickly at first, at a time when state legislatures were
passing harsh nativist laws, but have been very low for three years now.
What follows is a list of nativist extremist groups active in 2015:
ARIZONA (2)
American Freedom Riders
Phoenix, AZ
Arizona Border Recon
Phoenix, AZ
CALIFORNIA (2)
Minuteman Project
Laguna Hills, CA
We the People Rising
Claremont, CA
FLORIDA (1)
Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, Inc.
Pompano Beach, FL
GEORGIA (1)
Dustin Inman Society, The
Marietta, GA
IOWA (1)
Minuteman Civil Defense Corps
Des Moines, IA
MARYLAND (1)
Help Save Maryland
Rockville, MD
MICHIGAN (1)
Michiganders for Immigration Control
and Enforcement
Frankenmuth, MI
MINNESOTA (1)
Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform
Hanska, MN
NEW JERSEY (2)
New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control
Carlstadt, NJ
United Patriots of America
Linden, NJ
NORTH CAROLINA (1)
North Carolinians for Immigration Reform
and Enforcement (NCFIRE)
Wade, NC
OREGON (1)
Oregonians for Immigration Reform
McMinnville, OR
RHODE ISLAND (1)
Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law
Enforcement
Central Falls, RI
TEXAS (2)
Stop the Magnet
Houston, TX
Texas Border Volunteers
Waxahachie, TX
WHITE NATIONALIST GROUPS
White nationalists — racists who generally
eschew Klan or neo-Nazi uniforms
and propaganda in favor of a
more genteel, suit-and-tie approach
— saw two major figureheads of their
movement die in 2015: Gordon Baum,
founder of the Council of Conservative
Citizens (CCC), and Willis Carto, who
was involved in a series of racist organizations
and publishers and a leader in
denying the Holocaust.
Baum died in March, three months
before his organization would become
infamous for the online postings about
black crime that Dylann Roof said radicalized
him and ultimately led to the June
Charleston massacre. Both the CCC’s
Kyle Rogers, the webmaster who made
those postings, and CCC President Earl
Holt were dragged through the media for
their roles as propagandists. For a brief
time, the press was bad enough that the
CCC asked Jared Taylor, a far more articulate
white nationalist than either of
them, to act as its spokesman during a
press barrage.
Carto, whose racist and anti-Semitic
activism stretched back to the 1950s,
died in October. He was the founder of
an array of organizations and publications:
the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby,
the Holocaust-denying Institute for
Historical Review, Noontide Press, Youth
for Wallace and The Spotlight, American
Free Press and The Barnes Review.
Although he at one time had friends in
Congress and other centers of power, he
was reviled by most politicians by the
time he died. ▲
Contributors to this report included Heidi
Beirich, Keegan Hankes, Stephen Piggott, and
Evelyn Schlatter.
42 splc intelligence report