While watching FS1’s coverage of the MLB playoffs in recent days, baseball fans may have noticed a blatantly racist anti-immigration advertisement repeatedly played during commercial breaks. A group that called themselves “Citizens for Sanity” made an ad depicting immigrants of Latino descent as drug dealers and other stereotypes, according to the LA Times.
The commercial aired during the mid-fourth inning break of the NLDS finale between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers Saturday night. Fans had seen the ad on Oct. 11 during the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves series, as Awful Announcing points out.
Who are Citizens of Sanity exactly? The LA Times notes the group is associated with a bunch of former President Donald Trump aides who were at the forefront of much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric while in office. Specifically, Citizens of Sanity ties back to America First Legal Foundation, founded by former Trump senior advisor and speechwriter Stephen Miller.
If you remember Miller’s time in the White House, he was the architect of the 2017 travel ban and the policy of separating migrant children from their families. The ad aligns with past Trump rhetoric that immigrants bring crime and drugs into the country.
“This giant flood of illegal immigration is draining your paychecks, wrecking your schools, ruining your hospitals, threatening your family,” stated the overwrought narrator, over the obligatory ominous soundtrack. “Mixed among the masses are drug dealers, sex traffickers and violent predators.”
Citizens of Sanity has also released another misleading ad blaming “woke” politicians like Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for “the rise in urban violent crime.” FSI falls under the same umbrella as Fox News, but Major League Baseball doesn’t sell any ad space on the channel. It’s still puzzling why a commercial designed to spread fear and hatred was still able to be run.