Americans for Immigration Moratorium (AIM)

Founded in Rogers (Benton County) in 1997, Americans for an Immigration Moratorium (AIM) was an organization that worked to influence a series of American immigration reforms. Founder Dan Morris sought increased regulations and additional scrutiny for both legal and illegal immigration due to what Morris referred to as a mass immigration to northwestern Arkansas throughout the 1990s. AIM’s primary goal was a complete halt to U.S. immigration for a five-year period.

In 1988, Morris and his family relocated to Rogers from Albuquerque, New Mexico, looking to put down roots in the quiet yet prosperous area. During the 1990s, the northwestern Arkansas area had a high rate of employment coupled with an affordable cost of living, which positioned the region as a desirable and viable destination for families and employment seekers alike. As home to three Fortune 500 companies (Walmart, J. B. Hunt Transport Services, and Tyson Foods), the region attracted a wide variety of prospective job seekers. Tyson Foods in particular enacted a campaign seeking to fill jobs with an immigrant labor force, which aided in fostering the chain migration that occurred in the area. The overwhelming majority of these positions were filled with individuals of Latin American origin, with many relocating from border states like California and Texas, where the cost of living and population were both on the rise.

Similarly to AIM’s Dan Morris, these transplants were seeking smaller towns with less competition, lower costs of living, and lower crime rates. Over time, rapid growth paired with the changing face of the community sparked a backlash of nativism from some Arkansans, who quickly took to the anti-immigrant dogma on which AIM was built. The administration of Rogers mayor John Sampier, however, extolled the newcomers as contributing to the community by buying homes, paying taxes, and generally participating in the local economy. Prior to the 1998 Rogers mayoral race and the formation of AIM, Morris’s wife, Ann Morris, had faxed the office of Sampier warning the mayor that the influx of Latin American families could result in the departure of current Rogers residents. Sampier responded that the Rogers community would be better for the vacancy, and his implementation of social programs focusing on welcoming immigrant families to Rogers continued unabated. The Morrises responded by saying that the “craven mayor [had] opened the floodgates.”

Upon AIM’s official formation, Dan Morris began attending open city council meetings with the intention of challenging Sampier’s policies that, he claimed, favored “illegals” over American citizens. Subsequently, AIM began hosting its own open town hall–style meetings where community members could voice their own complaints about the newly arriving transplant community. AIM garnered its most substantial boost in momentum in 1998 after formally endorsing Steve Womack’s campaign to replace Sampier as mayor of Rogers. Womack joined the criticism of immigration. The announcement followed the corporate endorsement of Sampier’s incumbency by Tyson Foods. Morris cited the move as collusion with “poultry barons” and as a plot favoring the growth of the Latin American community in Rogers. Womack’s bid for the mayor’s office was ultimately successful, and he ran unopposed in 2002 and 2006. In 2010, Womack, again campaigning for immigration reform, was elected U.S. representative from the Third District. The Republican Womack was reelected repeatedly, facing his first serious opposition in 2024 from Democrat Caitlin Draper.

Appearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims concerning the impact of illegal immigration on June 10, 1999, Morris offered his opinions on “a wave of immigrants, primarily from Mexico, many illegal,” and the subsequent impact on northwestern Arkansas. Morris asserted that the demographic shift had brought with it violence, illegal drugs, and a burden on public schools and services. The hearing was broadcast on C-SPAN, showcasing the migration pattern in Arkansas, and featured Morris as founder of “a grassroots citizens organization.”

“An Examination of U.S. Immigration Policy and Serious Crime,” published by the Center for Immigration Studies, interrogated the numbers behind AIM’s nativist claims, and several nationwide and regional independent studies concluded that newly located Latinos, regardless of immigration status, were not disproportionately likely to commit crimes; in actuality, the opposite effect has been reported. A 1997 jointly sponsored report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Urban Institute typified this view by stating that “few stereotypes of immigrants are as enduring, or have been proven so categorically false over literally decades of research.”

AIM disbanded in the early 2000s, and Morris maintained a more private life thereafter. The Latin American community in northwestern Arkansas has maintained growth since the 1990s and is now considered an integral part of the region.

For additional information:
Campo-Flores, Arian. “A Town’s Two Faces.” Newsweek, June 3, 2001, pp. 34–35. Online at https://www.newsweek.com/towns-two-faces-153335 (accessed June 13, 2024).

Guerrero, Perla M. Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.

Harton, Greg. “Shut Door to Aliens, Rogers Group Says. Influx Eroding Culture of Region, Members Claim.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 8, 1997, p. 1B.

Horowitz, Carl F. “An Examination of U.S. Immigration Policy and Serious Crime.” CIS.org (Washington DC), May 1, 2001. https://cis.org/Report/Examination-US-Immigration-Policy-and-Serious-Crime#II (accessed June 13, 2024).

Kirschten, Dick. “A Melting Pot Chills in Arkansas.” National Journal, November 14, 1998.

Johnson, Ben F., III. Arkansas in Modern America since 1930. 2nd ed. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2019.

Morris, Dan. “Impact of Illegal Immigrants.” House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims. C-SPAN, June 10, 1999. https://www.c-span.org/video/?124938-1/impact-illegal-immigrants# (accessed June 13, 2024).

Perea, Juan F. Immigrants Out! The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse in the United States. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

Riffel, Brent E. “The Feathered Kingdom: Tyson Foods and the Transformation of American Land, Labor, and Law, 1930–2005.” PhD diss., University of Arkansas, 2008.

Rodman, Mike. “Springdale Up in Arms over Aliens: Parties, Crowding Spark Call for Additional Police.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 24, 1994, p. 1B.

Romano, Lois. “A Community Adapts to Newcomers.” Washington Post, March 24, 1998. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/03/24/a-community-adapts-to-newcomers/70c842a9-cab8-48c7-a0b5-bc2ce0a7eea1/ (accessed June 13, 2024).

Weise, Julie M. Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Jordan R. Carpenter
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville