Rodney Hunt, Co-Founder of Mississippi Federation for Immigrant Reform and Enforcement, Wages One-Man Battle Against Illegal Immigration

At Los Angeles Times, "One man helps mount Mississippi's anti-illegal-immigrant movement":

Latinos have moved to the South in growing numbers over the last decade, and their presence has been accompanied by growing anger and resentment aimed at illegal immigrants. If Hunt gets his way, Mississippi will become the latest Southern state to pass a law aimed at driving illegal immigrants out — establishing the Deep South as the U.S. region with the most-stringent restrictions on illegal immigrants.

In Mississippi, there's a struggle that goes beyond immigration. Latinos, regardless of legal status, are part of a grand contest to define the state's future.

Blacks, who vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, make up 37% of Mississippi's population, the highest percentage of any state. Latinos, if they vote Democratic, could one day tip the balance of power in a state where whites — that is, white Republicans — have the upper hand.

When Hunt describes this dynamic, it is not in racial terms — because, he says, these are not the terms he thinks in. Though he is a white Mississippian raised in the '60s, he says, "I changed, along with most of the people in my generation. We try to accept people as they are, and not by the color of their skin."

His public appeals have been based on familiar arguments about illegal immigrants: the jobs they are taking, their flouting of the rule of law, their burden on government coffers.

His broad goal, he said, is not to retain white power in Mississippi. It's to retain conservative power.

"It has nothing to do with race," he says.

Well, it's about the rule of law, if you ask me. But that won't stop progressives from screaming RAAAAACIST!!!