UPDATED: Republican candidate's team intimidates Latino Voters...

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 9:31 AM on October 19, 2006.

The California Coalition for Immigration Reform, listed as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, sent a letter in Spanish, telling Latinos that it's "dangerous, useless, and illegal for them to vote," and that they can be deported. And then the cowards denied it.

UPDATE: It looks like the letter was sent by someone in the office of Republican candidate Tan D. Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant himself. He, of course, claims to have no prior knowledge of the letter and has fired the staffer who, he says, was responsible.

The report (video right) notes that the intimidating letter had CCIR letterhead but Barbara Coe, described by the SPLC as "Vitriolic, conspiracy-minded and just plain mean," denies that it was written by her group.

Her group or someone associated, whatever -- it rings hollow when you've been investigated for intimidating citizens before.

In addition to calling Mexicans "savages," here's a recent Coe rant: "We are suffering robbery, rape and murder of law-abiding citizens at the hands of illegal barbarians... who are cutting off heads and appendages of blind, white, disabled gringos."

But here's my favorite part; Coe's connection to both the Republican party and white supremacists (no jokes about redundancy please...):

In a profile of her close friend, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), the paper said Coe described speaking to and belonging to the Council of Conservative Citizens. That group, which has called blacks "a retrograde species of humanity," has long been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group -- as has Coe's own California Coalition for Immigration Reform.

Tagged as: immigration, vote, suppression, hate, groups

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.