VDARE
 | |
Website type | Far-right politics[1] |
|---|---|
| Owner | VDARE Foundation |
| Founder | Peter Brimelow |
| Website | vdare |
| Launched | 1999 |
| Current status | Operations suspended since July 26, 2024 |
VDARE is an American far-right[1] website that promotes opposition to immigration to the United States.[2] It is associated with white supremacy,[3][4][5] white nationalism,[6][7] and the alt-right.[8][9][10] Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia describes VDARE as "one of the most prolific anti-immigration media outlets in the United States" and states that it was "broadly concerned with race issues in the United States".[11] Established in 1999, the website's editor was Peter Brimelow, who once stated that "whites built American culture" and that "it is at risk from non-whites who would seek to change it".[11]
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes VDARE as "an anti-immigration hate website" that "regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists, and anti-Semites", including Steve Sailer, Jared Taylor, J. Philippe Rushton, Samuel T. Francis, John Derbyshire[2] and Pat Buchanan.[12] Brimelow acknowledged that VDARE published writings by white nationalists but said that VDARE was not a "white nationalist Web site".[13][14]
In July 2024, it was announced that VDARE would be suspending operations in response to legal and technical issues. Brimelow also stepped down as president of the VDARE Foundation.[15]
In September 2025, the state of New York sued to shut down the VDARE Foundation, alleging the non-profit was operated for the benefit of its owners Peter and Lydia Brimelow.[16]
History
[edit]Peter Brimelow, who edits VDARE, is a former editor at National Review[17] and Fortune.[11] The English-born Brimelow founded the website in 1999 under the auspices of the Center for American Unity, a Virginia-based organization that he also founded[12] in 1999.[8] VDARE was founded as an outgrowth of Brimelow's anti-immigration activism and the publication of his book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster.[7] The website says it is concerned with the "racial and culture identity of America" and "honest consideration of race and ethnicity, the foundations of human grouping, that human differences can be explained and their social consequences understood, whether those differences are philosophical, cultural or biological."[18]
Brimelow was president of the center,[8] which funded VDARE.com until 2007, when the center announced an intent to focus on litigation.[12] The VDARE Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, was formed by Brimelow to take the place of the center as the website's sponsor.[12] Brimelow's wife, Lydia Brimelow, is VDARE's advancement officer.[7]
The name VDARE and the site's logo, the head of a white doe, refer to Virginia Dare, the first child born to English settlers in the New World in the late 16th century.[8][19] Dare disappeared along with every other member of the Roanoke Colony.[11] Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia explains that "For Brimelow, Anglo-Saxon Americans and their culture are in danger of disappearing like Virginia Dare; he writes that he considered adding a fictional vignette at the end of his book Alien Nation (1995), in which the last white family flees Los Angeles, which had been overrun by the crime and pollution caused by its non-white residents."[11]
Brimelow has written on the site that United States immigration policy constitutes "Adolf Hitler's posthumous revenge on America". In a radio interview with Alan Colmes, he said he wished to return to the US immigration policies before 1965, when restrictions to non-whites were lifted, as "the US is a white nation."[18]
New York Attorney General investigation
[edit]
In February 2020, the VDARE Foundation purchased the Samuel Taylor Suit Cottage (also known as the Berkeley Castle or Berkeley Springs Castle), a Medieval-style castle located on a hill above Berkeley Springs, in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, for $1.4 million.[20] New York Attorney General (NYAG) Letitia James alleged that VDARE had violated New York law by misusing non-profit resources while residing on the castle grounds since March 2020.[21][22] The VDARE Foundation is registered in New York and is therefore subject to New York regulation.[22]
In March 2024, a New York state judge found the VDARE Foundation in civil contempt for failing to turn over evidence related to the investigation. The organization was required to pay a $250-per-day fine until it complied with a subpoena issued by the NYAG in 2022.[22] In July, it was announced that VDARE would be suspending operations, with Brimelow resigning as president of the VDARE Foundation. A spokesperson for the attorney general's office said that the website's closure would not affect their investigation.[15]
In September 2025, New York sued the VDARE foundation and its owners, alleging the non-profit was operated for the benefit of its owners Peter and Lydia Brimelow. Saying her office would "shut down this fraudulent organization", the state attorney general alleged, "The Brimelows used VDARE like their personal piggy bank, draining millions in charitable assets to enrich themselves."