An Open Letter to Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer

By Dan Cadman on August 16, 2018

Dear Rep. Hoyer:

It has come to my attention that recently, in an attempt to dissuade a federal official from making himself available for discussion and public questioning at a forum, you reviled the hosting organization using a variety of smears borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The federal official was Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the host organization was my employer, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which has had to confront these false assertions more than once before. (See here, here, and here.)

I am by birth a native of your state, Rep. Hoyer, and I was appalled at your use of tactics more reminiscent these days of those callow far leftists who engage in all manner of disreputable tactics rather than promote or permit the kind of open discussion protected by the First Amendment. This conduct was beneath you.

It was all the more reprehensible because you were appropriating smears from the SPLC, a morally bankrupt group that has so liberally applied the phrase "hate group" to other organizations and individuals whose views diverge from its own that it has been forced repeatedly to retrench and retract when faced with the possibility of lawsuits.

Be that as it may, having been made aware of your tender sensibilities, I thought I might take this opportunity to point out something that may have escaped your attention: You yourself belong to an organization that has a long and dishonorable history of shocking affiliation with all manner of staunch segregationists and white supremacists. I refer of course to the Democratic Party. (See, for instance, here, here, here, and here).

It is only a surprise to me that your party's affiliations somehow escaped the SPLC's vigilance and it therefore hasn't yet shown up on their list of haters. Perhaps if it had, you might not find yourself in the embarrassing circumstance of being found in such company now.

Given this horrific fact, I beg you for the love of heaven to immediately quit your own affiliation with such a self-evident hate group and re-register with the Party of Lincoln.

Sincerely,

Dan Cadman

CIS fellow, and a fellow Marylander