Santa Barbara anti-immigration organization Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) was labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in its new report on the rise of radical right extremism under the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump.
According to SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok, the listing was based on troubling statements made by CAPS founders and former members about race and eugenics, the group’s recent hiring of two white nationalists as senior writers, and the fresh revelation that for six months last year CAPS employed a closeted neo-Nazi as its director of public affairs.
Headquartered on lower State Street and with thousands of followers across the country, CAPS is a 31-year-old nonprofit organization that advocates for stricter immigration laws in the name of environmental sustainability and economic equity. According to its 2015 tax filings, the most recent available, CAPS collected $1.2 million in public contributions that year. It spent $416,000 on advertising and $195,000 on lobbying.