Free Republic

Bigotry isn't funny, said Cesar Baldelomar in Sojourners. But Forum Novelties Inc. is trying to cash in on racist stereotypes by selling—through Walgreens, Target, and other major retailers—an "illegal alien" Halloween costume, featuring a space alien mask, an orange prison jumpsuit, and an oversize green card. Maybe the joke would be funny if undocumented immigrants weren't still being beaten to death by young men raised on xenophobic hatred. (Watch reactions to the costume) What "absurd outrage," said commentator Debbie Schlussel in her blog. "You can sell Nazi memorabilia on eBay," but let a secure borders group, Americans for Legal Immigration,...

DALLAS — For just $39.99, you can now dress up as an "illegal alien" for Halloween. Target is selling the costume made up of an orange jumpsuit with the words "illegal alien" written across the chest. The costume even comes with a mask of a space invader with big eyes, and a green card. It's not a funny matter to some leaders with LULAC, one of the largest Latino civil rights organizations in the country. Immediate National LULAC President Hector Flores says the costume is racist in nature. Flores adds, "The costume, while clearly depicting a supposed visitor from space,...

A federal three-judge panel this week delivered a major blow to the Texas Democratic Party's so-called “Texas Two Step” process for selecting convention delegates, paving the way for its review by the Justice Department. Describing its claim as lacking merit, the 24-page unanimous ruling denied the state Democratic Party's motion for a summary judgment, or dismissal, of a lawsuit filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens of Texas, the Mexican American Bar Association of Houston and others. LULAC's suit charges that the Texas Two Step dilutes the Latino vote by awarding more delegates to “white majority districts” at...

PHOENIX — The Rev. Al Sharpton on Friday called for opponents of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has aggressively cracked down on illegal immigration, to videotape alleged racial profiling by the sheriff’s office. The civil rights leader said the videos will help the U.S. Department of Justice in an investigation of alleged civil rights abuses by Arpaio’s office. “We’re gonna start some freedom rides around this county, to show how people of a certain skin color are treated different than other people,” Sharpton told a crowd of several hundred people at the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church in Phoenix. Sharpton...

Disagreement with Guard's possible return National Guard troops could be returning to the border, this time in an expanded role that includes "riding shotgun for Border Patrol," if the U.S. House has its way. "If we give them a little more training on this, I think we can do some more, have them play a more active role in law enforcement," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. "That's what I'm looking at." Not everyone agrees with that plan. "We've always taken the stand that the National Guard should not be called in," said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. "Why? Because...

It’s an old device in politics: Set up a straw man to criticize when you can’t win an argument on your own. Such tactics, unfortunately, are standard fare when it comes to efforts by a handful of special interest groups to bring about amnesty for illegal immigrants. Organizations such as the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Migration Policy Institute know that most Americans disagree with their desire for amnesty. Most Americans want to see immigration laws enforced. So these groups create straw...

Census Bureau: We’ll Work with ‘Community Organizations’ to Count All Illegal Aliens in 2010 Thursday, April 02, 2009 By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter (CNSNews.com) - The acting director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Thomas Mesenbourg, told CNSNews.com that the bureau intends to work with community organizations to make sure every illegal alien in the United States is counted in the 2010 Census. The Census is used to apportion the seats in the U.S. House of Representative. There are 435 House seats that are divided among the states in proportion to their population, which is determined by the decennial census. States...

Letters to the Editor: 2.24.09 Their time is gone I read the article in the Feb. 19 edition about Geraldo Rivera applauding LULAC’s mission. Believe me, I’m not an idealist, but I am a thinker. What would happen if LULAC and the NAACP went away? I believe we would all be fine. It seems to me that organizations that represent people solely on the basis of race tend to be more racist than the causes that they fight so adamantly against. Why can’t we have a single Chamber of Commerce that represents Hispanic and black interests as well as their...

As the United States awaits the inauguration of its first nonwhite president, organizations representing women, gays and lesbians and people of color are working overtime to encourage President-elect Barack Obama to make good on his remark that he would nominate "one of the most diverse Cabinets and White House staffs of all time." Recommending names of possible presidential nominees is a time-honored part of the political process for interest groups of all stripes. But the push for diversity, which gained steam over the last couple of presidencies, has reached a crescendo this year, political observers say, with constituent groups building...

Building a border fence, tougher immigration laws and resources that could allow local law enforcement agencies to target immigrants are all symptoms of a bias against Hispanics that must change, Rosa Rosales, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, said in El Paso this weekend. "One of our top priorities is civil rights. It was the same way before me," she said. "To this day, we feel there's still a lot of discrimination in employment, discrimination in housing, discrimination in the overall issues that pertain to minorities." Rosales, in El Paso for a quarterly LULAC...

What most people will not expect of the new administration is an effort to "solve" the problems with our immigration system by granting amnesty (or some euphemism for the same) to millions of illegal aliens to satisfy the insatiable desire for American businesses for lower-wage labor. We had that debate in 2007, and the American public soundly rejected it. Yet, McCain and Obama are appearing before the national conventions of Hispanic ethnocentric lobbyist and pressure organizations promising to make "comprehensive immigration reform" (amnesty) a priority. Amnesty is irresistable because it provides an easy "fix" to a difficult problem. It can...

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama will be using the National Council of La Raza convention, which begins tomorrow in San Diego, as a platform for courting the increasingly significant Latino vote. Convention organizers hope to press the senators for answers on some of the thorniest issues affecting Latinos, among them immigration policies and solutions to the nation's health insurance and mortgage crises. This week, as they prepared to participate in the four-day event at the San Diego Convention Center, some local groups said they were optimistic about what they would hear from the candidates and in convention sessions,...

Last October, when John McCain’s presidential campaign was nearly dead, I went to Iowa to follow him around for a few days. The story felt like a eulogy. Few observers believed McCain could come back from the twin disasters of his campaign nearly running out of money and his disastrous stand on comprehensive immigration reform. Riding in a van from Sioux City to Sheldon, I asked McCain what had gone wrong. “The biggest detriment to our campaign so far — by far — was the immigration issue, because it’s an emotional issue with our Republican base,” he told me. “I...

WASHINGTON: Senator John McCain told a major Hispanic group here Tuesday that he remained committed to passing the kind of immigration legislation that angered many Republican voters last year, but he underscored that he intended to first secure U.S. borders. Speaking to the convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens, McCain noted his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, which was supported by President George W. Bush and such Democrats as Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts but which fell apart last year after an angry grass-roots movement that viewed it as tantamount to amnesty rose up to oppose...

Barack Obama has pledged to push through immigration reforms that would give America's 12 million illegal migrants a form of citizenship. "I will make it a top priority in my first year as President - not only because we have an obligation to secure our borders and get control of who comes in and out of our country...but because we have to finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows," he said in a speech in Washington. Both the Democratic nominee and his Republican rival Senator John McCain addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens, the largest Latino organization...

Who read Free Republic? Apparently the U.S. Secret Service does!This past weekend, I posted an article alerting the Secret Service that members of the terrorist supporting group Code Pink were using fake presses to gain access to events headlined by Secret Service protectees like presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (AZ).This morning, McCain spoke at the LULAC convention in Washington, D.C. Usually when he speaks at an event in D.C., McCain can expect to have his speech disrupted by Code Pink activists who rush the stage and heckle him from the audience and the press section.That didn't happen today....

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain told a major Hispanic group here Tuesday that he remains committed to passing the kind of immigration legislation that angered many Republican voters last year (snip)

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee, US Senator John McCain addresses the League of United Latin American Citizens convention at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. Iraq's hardening demand for a pullout deadline for US troops on Tuesday reignited the sharp campaign quarrel over the war between White House rivals McCain and Barack Obama. John McCain, seen here in Mexico City on July 3, 2008 US Republican presidential hopeful John McCain points at a journalist during a press conference north of Bogota, Colombia. McCain has warned security conditions must dictate troop withdrawals from Iraq, after Baghdad said it wanted a timetable for...

Barack Obama, John McCain, and even Hillary Clinton will all be speaking at this year's convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), an illegal immigration-supporting group that was once patriotic but has since been radicalized. As shown by the attendees discussed below, the convention will be a nexus of those who do not support what's in the best interests of the U.S. For example, here's a 2007 quote from their national treasurer Jaime Martinez, who'll also be appearing at one of their workshops: "We must not sell out, and we must fight for the rights of our...

The two presidential candidates will discuss matters of interest for the latin american community in this country. The Angeles.- The two main presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, will be the guests of honor at the third Latin American National Congress, that will be carried out on July 18 and 19 in Los Angeles. The organizers confirmed the participation of the two politicians in the event, that will be performed in an exclusive hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where it is expected that more than 300 organizations of 20 cities will attend. On the first day, McCain...

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who wrapped his party’s presidential nomination just this week, is already besieged by liberal constituencies demanding that he cut military spending to boost social programs. Two influential liberal groups have sent the presumptive Democratic nominee a letter pressing him to support cuts to defense programs to pay for universal preschool, relief for Americans facing foreclosure on their homes and expanded benefits for military veterans. The demands carry weight because the groups, the Black Leadership Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), represent two constituencies that are important to Obama’s political strategy: blacks and...

By BILL MURPHY Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Comments (304) Yahoo! Buzz The Houston rodeo has rejected a U.S. Justice Department offer to mediate disputes with minority groups who say it needs more minorities in high-ranking positions, doesn't give scholarships to noncitizens in the country legally and has stopped featuring Tejano performers on its main stages. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo does not believe mediation is needed because it promotes diversity and does not engage in discrimination, said chief operating officer Leroy Shafer. "At this point, we see no need to have a Justice Department mediator involved in this," he...

  We all know John McCain is terrible on immigration. For years he held America’s sovereignty and security hostage to amnesty and increased immigration, and his newfound support for “enforcement first” is so insubstantial and transparently insincere that it insults our intelligence. He’s so bad that Americans for Better Immigration ranks his performance in office as the worst of all the presidential candidates — including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. (See the GOP grid here and the Democratic one here.) And as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, passage of McCain’s bill “would represent the largest expansion...

HOUSTON — Civil rights activists say "anti-immigrant hysteria" helped lead to the arrest of a Hispanic truck driver after a car accident that killed a Harris County sheriff's deputy who was driving drunk. Jose Jesus Vieyra, 57, a Mexican immigrant, is accused of causing a crash that killed sheriff's deputy Craig W. Miller on Feb. 21. Authorities say Vieyra caused the crash by crossing three lanes of traffic in his commercial truck and veering in front of Miller. But autopsy results released Thursday show that Miller, 43, had a blood-alcohol level between 0.27 and 0.32 when he died — more...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, flanked by Chuck Norris, Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist and U.S. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, stood beneath Laredo's railroad bridge near the riverbank Saturday morning advocating stronger border security, including constructing a border fence, having more law enforcement and eliminating carrizo."I come away from this with a better understanding of this," Huckabee said after touring Border Patrol facilities and later hiking to the edge of the Rio Grande to get a personal view of the terrain. "But also a sense of urgency that as a country we need to put our resources on border...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in the United States and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers. On his first trip to the U.S. as Mexico's president, Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments. "The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "I need to change...

Digger’s Realm did a terrific job compiling this clip reel of open borders zealot/McCain Hispanic outreach director Juan Hernandez’s greatest hits. He considers Canada, the U.S., and Mexico “a bloc, not one nation.” He puts “Mexico first.” He doesn’t believe there are any criminals among the 12-20 million illegal aliens he thinks should be legalized. He’s been saying all of this for a long time. The McCain campaign knew what it was getting. So should Republican voters: VIDEO at michellemalkin.com

The McCain campaign continues to perpetuate its Big Lie in the run-up to Super Tuesday. And thanks to MSM enablers and open-borders Republicans rooting for a McCain win, voters are swallowing the Big Lie. The Big Lie is that McCain can be trusted on immigration and border security .. You want straight talk? McCain’s tongue says he’s “listened and learned.” But his heart is with La Raza, the militantly ethnocentric, anti-immigration enforcement Hispanic lobbying group that honored him in 1999 and whose annual conference he keynoted in 2004. Go back and watch McCain on the Senate floor during the amnesty...

President Bush has maintained neutrality but privately expresses exasperation with Romney's hard-line stance on immigration......Bush is upset Romney changed his position at the expense of the president's immigration reform. Bush and McCain are not close, but he's grateful for McCain's support on Iraq and immigration. Florida Gov. Crist's unexpected late endorsement, which helped propel McCain to victory, was an unpleasant surprise to state Republican leaders. Crist had said he was not making an endorsement after shunning Giuliani's courtship and suggested that they also stay neutral. His support for McCain irked Republican activists who generally would have preferred former Romney. Romney...

McCain's love of amnesty will be a key issue. He supported amnesty in 2003 by name, proposed it in 2006 and 2007 without calling it amnesty, and says that anyone who says that he ever supported amnesty is a liar. He has insulted Americans who advocate border security and has cursed at the thought of building a border fence. The presence of Juan Hernandez in the background of the McCain campaign tells us that John McCain is as weak on border security now as he ever was. Dr. Juan Hernandez, a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, and past...

With John McCain’s victory in the Republican Primary in Florida, a lot of attention has come his way. The reaction of the pundits and the blogosphere has been all over the map. Some, such as Michael Medved, are enthusiastic about the candidate and his chances in the general election; others, such as Rush Limbaugh, are concerned that a McCain candidacy will spell the end of the Republican party as we know it. And with the cheering for and against him, so to have his past actions and policies come under scrutiny. Everything, from the Keating Five, to the Gang of...

I am disappointed in the tactics and statements of almost all the presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. My grandmother used to say that you can tell just as big a lie with a half-truth and sometimes a bigger one. Take the half-truths said about Mike Huckabee and taxes. I lived in Arkansas when he was the governor. He did away with the marriage tax penalty and the capital gains tax on the sale homes. He doubled Arkansas' standard deduction and the child care tax credit. He slashed the capital gains tax for both individuals and businesses. In 2001, Mike...

It is often said that the best way to find out how a candidate would act in office if elected, is to see who he/she surrounds himself with. Money is another factor, what people and industries are backing the candidate. These answers should be an indicator of what to expect. Who is behind the man should gauge what kind of man he is. The great Richard Viguerie tells the story of how he and other conservatives had a “seat at the table” of the presidential campaigns of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan for. His thinking was if Conservatives aren’t at...

A brand new WarrenPiece1 video -- Go Mike! http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=1276

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Hispanic activists who viewed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as a voice of moderation on illegal immigration say they've been taken aback by the hard-line stance he's adopted as a presidential candidate. While governor, Huckabee gained favor with Hispanic leaders by denouncing a high-profile federal immigration raid and suggesting some anti-illegal immigration measures were driven by racism. He advocated making children of illegal immigrants eligible for college scholarships. Huckabee's Republican presidential rivals have tried to make an issue of the scholarship plan, portraying him as soft on illegal immigration, an important issue for many GOP voters....

FREELAND – The founder of a Hazleton-based anti-illegal immigration group left for Iowa on Wednesday to join other activists to discredit GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee before the Iowa caucus. “We’re going to expose to Iowa voters that Mike Huckabee, who is currently leading in the Iowa polls, is … a fraud, and his record speaks volumes. He does not care about immigration reform, and basically, we need to go out there and get the word out,” Dan Smeriglio, president and founder of Voice of the People USA, said Wednesday at a press conference at the Veterans of Foreign Wars...

Every Democrat running for president thinks anti-illegal immigration activists are all racists and xenophobes. Do we really need a Republican nominee for president who thinks the same way? Breakout GOP candidate Mike Huckabee, the soft-on-border control former governor of Arkansas, scored a jaw-dropping endorsement Tuesday from Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. Despite a long gubernatorial record opposing employer sanctions and pushing tax-subsidized illegal alien education benefits, Huckabee won Gilchrist's support by unveiling a last-minute, tough-sounding homeland security plan. Trouble is, Huckabee has downright and longstanding contempt for his new bedfellows of convenience. Just two years ago, Huckabee appeared...

Editor’s Note: By participating in the historic Spanish-language debate on Univision, Republican candidates finally realized that they need Latino votes. But is it “too little, too late?" NAM editor Elena Shore monitors Spanish language media. The first Spanish-language Republican presidential candidate debate couldn’t have come at a better time for the GOP. Latino support for the Republican Party has dropped substantially when the Latino vote is more important than ever. The candidates’ jostling over who is tougher on immigration has alienated Latinos even further. Seven of the eight Republican presidential candidates showed up at the University of Miami Sunday with...

New Iowa Leader Criticized by for Indecision on Federal Student Aid. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who backed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, hedged Sunday on whether illegal immigrants who have gone to school in the United States should become eligible for federal student aid such as Pell grants and subsidized federal student loans. "I'm not sure that I would support that," Huckabee told ABC News, "it was a different program in Arkansas." Huckabee's failure to take a clear position on federal student aid while appearing on ABC News' "This Week with George...

BLUFFTON, S.C. (AP) -- Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday he wouldn't try to change laws that make citizens of children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, noting that it's a matter determined by the Constitution. "That's a very delicate balance that's been arrived at, and I wouldn't change that," Giuliani said in response to a question while campaigning at Sun City Hilton Head, a sprawling retirement community down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.

In politics, the surest path to irrelevance and powerlessness is to be taken for granted by one party and written off by another. That's the road Latinos are on, thanks to major blunders by the Republicans campaigning for president. In June, all but California's Duncan Hunter blew off an invitation to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In September, a debate on Spanish-language television had to be postponed after all but Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to commit. After taking criticism for the snub, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney have committed to taking part...

MEXICO CITY President Felipe Calderon decried Wednesday what he called "the growing harassment" of Mexicans in the United States and said his government will work to counter it by funding a media campaign to show migrant success stories. Mexican officials have expressed concern over a recent wave of immigration raids and a U.S. political climate perceived as anti-migrant. Calderon said U.S. presidential candidates were using migrants as "symbolic hostages" on the immigration issue. "I am especially worried about the growing harassment and frank persecution of Mexicans in the United States in recent days," Calderon said at a meeting of the...

The plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing Tyson Foods Inc. of hiring illegal aliens to work at poultry plants are focusing on the meat producer’s relationship with the League of Latin American Citizens. The class-action suit in U. S. District Court in Eastern Tennessee claims Springdale-based Tyson Foods knowingly hired illegal aliens to work for wages below what American workers would take. It was filed in April 2002 on behalf of former Tyson workers in several states, not including Arkansas. Trial is set for March 3. The plaintiffs in Trollinger v. Tyson are chicken plant workers who said they were harmed...

GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TO SUE ... a parent? The government school district in Galveston, Texas is threatening to sue a parent for what the school district says is libelous material on the parent's website. http://news.galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=67e7147b74f58ff1 Sandra Tetley runs a site – www.gisdwatch.com – where she posts information about the local government school system and its officials. If she does not remove the statements from the website, the district plans to sue her. Tetley accuses trustees and administrators of breaking the law. Her group, Galveston Alliance for Neighborhood schools, has a history of criticizing the district for reconfiguring its middle schools, closing...

CORPUS CHRISTI — A civil rights group says the sheriff investigating a law firm owner who has been accused of impersonating a lawyer and sheriff's deputy is violating the man's civil rights. Ramiro "Gambi" Gamboa, the civil rights chairman for LULAC Council No. 1, said the media and Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin have violated Mauricio Celis' civil rights in reporting the investigation into his recent activity. Celis, who owns CGT Law Group International, is a Rockport-Fulton High School graduate and major donor to Democratic causes in South Texas and nationally. He was relatively unknown to the public until a...

Little Rock (AP) - Governor Mike Huckabee is speaking out against federal agents who raided an Arkadelphia Chicken plant. Huckabee said it appears the arrests of 119 workers at the plant were terribly planned and that federal agents gave little thought to the consequences for children of those arrested. Families and churches in the Arkadelphia area have been caring for about 30 children left behind after the July 26 raid. Huckabee has joined Hispanic civil rights leaders to ensure the well-being of the children. Immigration officials said they raided the plant after auditing the company's records. The raid followed the...

The New Mexico League of United Latin American Citizens is calling for a federal investigation of the student who ripped down a Mexican flag at the University of New Mexico last month. "We are hoping that the FBI would open up an investigation, not really for what he did to the flag but really it goes deeper," said John Moya, president of one of LULAC's Albuquerque councils. LULAC bills itself as the largest Latino civil rights organization in the country. Moya said his organization is concerned about a July posting on the Internet by a "Peter Lynch" that refers to...

The heated debate over immigration has spurred Bernard Ortiz - and a handful of presidential candidates - to help mobilize Iowa's Latinos in an effort to shape the outcome of the state's upcoming caucuses and the 2008 presidential election. Ortiz, as a union worker, has helped hundreds of Latinos register to vote, while some presidential candidates have reached out beyond traditional mailings and phone calls to seek their support. For example, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, both Democrats, have introduced Latino outreach programs. Some Republicans have also made efforts to draw Latino voters, at least...

Huckabee promotes 'open door' policy at LULAC convention Thursday, Jun 30, 2005 By Wesley Brown Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - In a impassioned speech before hundreds of influential Hispanic civil rights leaders from across the nation, Gov. Mike Huckabee told a captive audience Wednesday that America is great because it has always opened it doors up to people seeking a better way of life. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," Huckabee said, citing the Golden Rule. "I have tried to govern that way and it stands to reason that I really do believe that...

A funny thing happened to a pro-illegal immigrant activist this week in Dallas, Texas. The activist, a League of United Latin American Citizens representative named Jesse Diaz, was carjacked. Obviously there’s nothing funny about someone sticking a gun in another person’s face and stealing his car. This isn’t funny as in hardy-har-har. And everyone is relieved that Mr. Diaz wasn’t hurt by the punk who threatened his life and stole his vehicle in broad daylight. But the amusing part of this crime is what happened afterward. It seems that Mr. Diaz is plenty steamed that it took the Dallas Police...