(The Daily Signal) – DA King, an immigration enforcement activist whose defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center is in court, sent a legal notice letter to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution demanding a correction, as the newspaper described his organization as an “anti-immigrant hate group.”
The liberal-leaning newspaper issued a correction Friday, acknowledging King's legal victory in court despite not reporting it at the time it happened.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the main newspaper in and around Georgia's capital, mentioned King's group, the Dustin Inman Society, in the sidelines of an Oct. 7 article about Katy Stamper, who won the Democratic primary in Georgia's 11th Congressional District. Democrats are now supporting a write-in candidate, claiming Stamper won the primary under false pretenses.
“A search for activity under her birth name, Karen Sacandy, which Stamper legally changed in 2019, revealed that she was previously affiliated with a Marietta-based anti-immigrant hate group,” wrote Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for the Journal-Constitution. Mitchell continued to add links to the Dustin Inman Society website without mentioning the society or explaining why it was labeled an “anti-immigration hate group” in the newspaper.
The Dustin Inman Society, which works to enforce immigration law and combat illegal immigration, has three legal immigrants on its advisory board: Mary Grabar (from Slovenia); Maria Litland (from Austria); and Sabine Durden-Coulter (from Germany). The company's name comes from a 16-year-old boy from Georgia who died in a car accident caused by an illegal immigrant in 2000.
King's sent a letter of demand on October 18 and the newspaper issued a correction on Friday.
“The left-wing AJC could have saved itself a lot of time and trouble if it hadn't so diligently tried to incorporate a smear of the Dustin Inman Society into an independent story about a congressional candidate it doesn't like,” King told The Daily Signal on Friday a written declaration. “Today’s lengthy retraction/correction shows that top AJC reporter Tia Mitchell got almost nothing right in her hit paragraph.”
King noted that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not report the story when a federal judge allowed his lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center to move forward in 2023, but the article's correction mentions that legal development.
“In their correction, the editors had to explain the fact that we have a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC because they decided not to cover this story when the court heard our case in early 2023,” he told The Daily Signal.
“Enforcing America's immigration laws is not 'anti-immigrant' or 'hateful,'” King added.
“This slander is a constant habit of retaliation for the AJC staff,” King previously told The Daily Signal. “They know it's wrong and have had to make many corrections over the years to tell readers that we target illegal immigration and are not somehow 'anti-immigration.'
Where did AJC come up with the idea?
King is already fighting in court to restore his reputation after a left-leaning organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, branded the Dustin Inman Society a “hate group.”
The SPLC, which routinely brands conservative and mainstream Christian organizations as “hate groups” and lumps them in with subgroups of the Ku Klux Klan, branded the society an “anti-immigrant hate group” in 2018. But back in 2011, the SPLC told the Associated Press that it did not consider the society a “hate group.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates for easing immigration restrictions, has registered a lobbyist opposing a community-backed law. Around the same time, the SPLC designated the society a “hate group.”
King sued the SPLC for defamation, and a federal judge allowed the lawsuit to move forward into the discovery process.
As I explain in my book, Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2012 a terrorist used the organization's “hate card” to attack a conservative Christian nonprofit in Washington, DC, and a former SPLC employee called out the “hate” allegations were a “highly profitable scam.” However, many defamation suits against the SPLC have failed, in part because few plaintiffs before King were able to show that the organization had reason to believe that the “hate group” label was false.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not quote the SPLC in its attack on the Dustin Inman Society and did not respond to the Daily Signal's request for comment for this story.
Competing with the SPLC?
King previously told The Daily Signal that the newspaper was taking up the Southern Poverty Law Center's attack but acting as an independent arbiter of “hate.”
“Since we began our fight against illegal immigration here in 2005, the AJC has evolved from a purely partisan, liberal and goal-oriented party to an obvious competitor to the despicable SPLC,” he said. “Apparently they have now made it their mission to bypass the left-wing establishment smear artists and classify political opponents who advocate for enforcement and speak out as running an 'anti-immigrant hate group' – including those who support immigrants are.”
King said the newspaper has a double standard: condemning his organization as a “hate group” while simultaneously recognizing those on the left who support amnesty for illegal immigrants. He cited the Georgia Association of Elected Officials, known by the acronym GALEO, which describes itself as “focused on increasing civic participation of the Latinx community and developing prominent Latino leaders throughout Georgia.”
“Meanwhile,” King said via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “they refer to far-left anti-enforcement groups like the infamous GALEO that publicly protest immigration enforcement as 'civil rights groups.'
King also noted that the AJC helped fund the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund gala in 2004. Mario Obledo, co-founder of MALDEF, had suggested that non-Hispanic white residents of California move “back to Europe.”
When then-President Bill Clinton awarded Obledo the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, a man in the audience asked, “You also stated that California is going to be a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn't like it, they should leave.” Is that what you said? ?”
“I did,” replied Obledo. “You should return to Europe.”
“The AJC has openly promoted open borders and helped fundraise for this far-left anti-border group,” King told The Daily Signal. “Just because MALDEF founder Mario Obledo called out Americans who disagreed with his plan for California and said those who disagreed should 'go back to Europe,' did not stop AJC from serving as the 'dinner chair' for to host a MALDEF sponsor gala here.”
“There was a time when I could get a guest enforcement column on their opinion page,” he complained to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The letter
Todd McMurtry, the libel attorney representing King, sent the demand letter to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week.
“By using Internet links, the AJC article falsely characterizes the Dustin Inman Society as a 'Marietta-based anti-immigrant hate group,'” McMurtry wrote. “This characterization is false, defamatory, and published with actual malice.”
“The Dustin Inman Society advocates for secure borders, is not 'anti-immigrant,' and its owners hate no one,” McMurtry added in the letter. “Rather, DIS is committed to enforcing U.S. immigration laws and actively combating illegal immigration.” This distinction is critically important and well known to the staff at your publication.”
Setting out the Society's position on immigration, McMurtry said: “It supports sustainable levels of legal immigration through established channels”; it “opposes illegal immigration for various social reasons”; and it “defends legal immigrants when the media tries to blur the difference between them and illegal immigrants.” He also noted that legal immigrants sit on the company's board of directors.
McMurtry demanded that the newspaper immediately retract the “defamatory statement,” issue “a prominent apology,” and “refrain from further defamatory characterizations of the Dustin Inman Society.”
241018.KING.Request a letter of revocation to AJCDownload
The letter warned that “failure to comply with these demands could result in further legal action.”
