The group's reported ties to the white nationalist movement have drawn scrutiny. The Anti-Defamation League wrote in 2014 that the group had a "nativist agenda and xenophobic origins and ties." Robert Vandervoort of Illinois, the former executive director of ProEnglish, was head of the Chicagoland Friends of "American Renaissance", the racist magazine led by Jared Taylor that serves as an outlet for white nationalist ideology. In 2012, ProEnglish hosted a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on "The Failure of Multiculturalism," on which one of the panelists was VDARE founder Peter Brimelow. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups in the United States, designated the group as a hate group in its 2014, 2015, and 2016 annual reports. The group has dismissed such criticism.