John Hamilton Tanton (February 23, 1934 – July 16, 2019) was an American ophthalmologist, white nationalist, and anti-immigration activist.

[1][2][3] In 1945, he moved with his family to a farm northeast of Bay City, Michigan, on which his mother had been raised and on which he worked.

[7][16][5] Unable to secure support from colleagues in groups such as Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club to limit immigration, in 1979 he founded the non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) with early support from Warren Buffett and Eugene McCarthy, with the promise that it would be "centrist/liberal in political orientation".

[20] In 1988, shortly before a referendum in Arizona to make English the state's official language, a memo written by Tanton in 1986 was leaked to the media.

[21][22] After the memo was published in various newspapers including the Arizona Republic, executive director Linda Chavez resigned.

[23] Former supporters of the group, including Walter Cronkite, Saul Bellow, and Gore Vidal, also ended their association, and Tanton resigned from his position as chairman.

[7][17] Both FAIR and Social Contract Press are designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

[32][33] He co-authored the book The Immigrant Invasion with Wayne Lutton, which was published by the Social Contract Press in 1994.

[5] In the words of Rafael Bernal of the Hill, Tanton's opposition to immigration was "on the grounds of population reduction and protection of an ethnic white majority".

"[37] Tanton's environmentalist and anti-immigration activities are well-documented in 15 file boxes of archives he donated to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.

[38] Tanton's promotion of such views has been influential, with ProPublica noting influences on Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, white supremacist Richard Spencer, Ann Coulter.