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Almost 20,000 questions were submitted for Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, but Fox News picked the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a designated hate group, to ask the first question on immigration.

"Struggling U.S. workers continue to compete with millions of illegal aliens," FAIR's Kristen Williamson claimed in her video question. "Do you support legislation to require all employers to use e-verify in order to ensure that the people that they hire are actually legally authorized to work in the U.S.?"

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich replied by saying that the country would be better off if the e-verify program was outsourced to private credit card companies.

Although FAIR has testified to Congress more than 30 times, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) considers them to be a hate group.

"The identification of FAIR as a bona fide hate group is important," SPLC's Mark Potok wrote in 2007. "FAIR is the hub of the American nativist movement, the group that more than any other has contributed to the rancid turn the national immigration discussion has taken. With FAIR fanning the flames of xenophobic intolerance, hate groups, hate crimes and hate speech directed at foreigners and Latinos continue to rise in America."