A Street-Fighter Mentality on Illegal Immigration

You all know about Save Our State (SOS) since I’ve written several big stories about their gritty efforts to confront pro-illegal immigration forces and Aztlan militants in California. As you’ve also seen from the ad hominem attacks by pro-Aztlan people here in our comments sections, SOS is accused of all kinds of heinous alliances with white supremacists and race hate groups. Though nothing could be further from the truth, I don’t even bother to rebutt such idiocy, considering the source. I don’t need to waste time arguing with dunder-heads who won’t even click their mouse a few times to do a little research, and learn the truth.

However, there are others of you who may still not know enough about the players involved in this front-line struggle in California. Let me introduce you to Joe Turner, president of SOS…

After the second Baldwin Park rally, the LA Times wrote a full profilearticle on Joe Turner that was published on Monday. Joe, the 29 year old president of SOS, is a former stock trader who efficiently runs the organization from his home.

“My goal is to continually keep this issue in the forefront of the American consciousness,” he added. “What makes our organization different is that we are not afraid to confront anybody about our beliefs.”

But with little to show for years of complaining about illegal immigration, Turner believes he has hit upon a solution that will work. He calls it “aggressive activism.”

It’s not about writing letters or calling elected officials. Rather, the technique focuses on high-profile events that touch a nerve, make politicians sweat and bring the media running.

“I call it a street-fighter mentality,” said Turner, a stay-at-home dad and Little League coach. “Too often our side has been reactive. I need to get rid of apathy and create activism.”

Turner graduated in 1995 from Riverside’s North High School, where he made local headlines for a speech supporting Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative that sought to deny many public benefits to undocumented immigrants.

He earned a business degree in 2000 from USC and worked for a time as an equities trader in Chicago before returning to California and settling in Ventura in 2003 with his wife and two children.

With time on his hands and an ear on talk radio, Turner was spurred to action last year by controversy stemming from U.S. Border Patrol sweeps in the Inland Empire and by an on-air campaign on KFI-AM (640) to oust Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) for what critics claimed was a lax record on illegal immigration.

In working on those issues, Turner said he met plenty of others fed up with illegal immigration and ready to do something about it.

“I realized how fragile the momentum was and I didn’t want to let that die,” said Turner, who launched Save Our State in July and counts hundreds from various ethnicities as members. “I wanted to do something. I just knew I had to get involved in some capacity.”

Save Our State has been protesting long and hard since incorporating last summer.

Members descended on Redondo Beach and picketed Home Depot stores for what they view as policies that encourage day workers to congregate at those sites. They’ve attended rallies backing last summer’s Border Patrol crackdown and joined protests over billboards for a Spanish-language TV news station that labeled “Los Angeles, CA” as “Los Angeles, Mexico.”

“Because the problem is getting worse and worse, people are getting angry,” said Save Our State member Chris Spellman, 34, an Alhambra resident of Mexican descent. He said his presence counters claims that the group is racist.

The group maintains a website where protests are promoted and strategies devised. The site, which has nearly 600 registered users, is visited by the opposition, often resulting in heated exchanges on its message boards. A link labeled the “Hall of Shame” features Latino leaders viewed by the group as soft on illegal immigration.

[Turner] said he is tired of politicians promising to clamp down on illegal immigration, then doing nothing about it. And he said he is increasingly alarmed by what he views as attempts by activists to launch “La Reconquista,” a theory that holds that militants of Mexican descent are plotting to take back California and other parts of the Southwest.

He sees illegal immigration as a means to that end, providing a population base that activists could exploit to achieve their takeover plans.

Turner said it angers him “when they say this land was stolen and it’s going to go back to Mexico,” Turner said. “You know what? You’re going to have to take me out first.”

Despite his youthful appearance, there is an air of confidence — even bravado — about Turner. He said he is willing to debate his opponents any time on the illegal immigration issue. And he is confident that he can push others off their couches and expand Save Our State into a nationwide movement.

“People who feel the way we do on this issue are hungering for someone who is going to take charge,” Turner said. “What I’m trying to do is send up a flag, to tell people, ‘I know you’re angry and I know you want to get involved, and here’s a way to do it.’”

Activist’s Evolution

• As a student at North High School in Riverside, Joseph Turner wrote editorials for the campus newspaper and spent a summer clerking for Republican Rep. Ken Calvert. His opinion pieces often were politically conservative, and he said many of them never got published.

• Putting his business degree from USC to work, Turner organized a protest of a Home Depot store in Rancho Cucamonga, calling for supporters to buy lots of small-ticket items — 7-cent washers and 8-cent screws — to clog the check stands and hurt the company’s bottom line. “You’ve got to be creative,” Turner said. “It’s one part activist, one part guerrilla tactician.”

• Turner once lived in Baldwin Park, the scene of Save Our State’s most heated protest to date. “That’s why I thought it was funny that everyone [the counter-protesters] was calling me an outsider,” he said.

H/T: CAMinuteman

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