Jillian Rayfield December 1, 2011, 4:35 PM

The anti-immigration group ALIPAC may be forced to shut down and relaunch because of fundraising issues, which the group attributes to the economic downturn, the Republican field and, of course, President Obama.

In an e-mail to supporters Thursday, ALIPAC head William Gheen wrote that for “first time in our organization’s history, we have failed to reach our minimum operational expenses for our final funds drive of 2011. All things being equal, this would put us on a final shutdown date of January 1,” 2012.

But, he told TPM that “we are not closing down, we are making changes to our organization to be able to function better in the very changed economic environment,” and that they are fundraising to help launch a more efficient “ALIPAC 2.0.”

In the e-mail, Gheen first blamed the economic downturn and technical problems with the site for the group’s fundraising troubles, but added that it doesn’t help that “we are having to take issue with different politicians like Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich of whom some of our members have decided to support.”

But, he said, it’s also Obama’s fault, because supporters are so “utterly dismayed by the authoritarian and dictatorial actions of Obama,” that they have become “demoralized” and “are throwing their hands up in exhaustion instead of rallying against Obama.”

“Many of our supporters have communicated to us that since Obama has taken immigration policy away from Congress and the results of elections that they have lost confidence in the political process,” Gheen told TPM.

Gheen said in the e-mail to supporters that they need to raise $10,000, which they will try to get by selling off domain names they’ve previously used, such as loudobbsforpresident.org, holdtheirfeettothefire.org and lastamericans.us.

“We will do our best to sell these to fellow patriots on our side of the issue, but there is a chance these domains will fall into the hands of marketers or illegal alien invasion supporters who might bid on them,” Gheen said.

Gheen has previously accused Obama of being at war with “White America,” and accused Democrats of recruiting gay immigrants to “bring down” American culture.

h/t Right Wing Watch.

ALIPAC, Immigration, William Gheen