This Week on the Right

Tom Tancredo is Leader of the Anti-Immigrant Populist Right

Rep. Tom Tancredo, who has represented Colorado’s Sixth District since 1999, has in the last six years succeeded in rallying an anti-immigrant populist revolt that brings together the nativists, religious right, cultural supremacists, militia movement, and anti-immigration policy institutes with a new anti-immigration wing of the Republican Party.

From 1993 to 1998, Tancredo served as president of right-wing think tank Independence Institute, located in Golden, Colorado. The institute weighs in on an array of state issues, including government spending, education policy, and social issues. Its board of trustees includes Jeff Coors of Coors Brewing, a right-wing philanthropist involved in right-wing foundations established by the Coors family, such as Castle Rock Foundation. Emblematic of the positions held by the Independence Institute, Tancredo said,