April 12, 2007

Hillary Clinton picks National Council of La Raza's Raul Yzaguirre to co-chair

Hillary Clinton has selected Raul Yzaguirre - former president of the National Council of La Raza ("The Race") - as the co-chair of her presidential campaign. He'll head up her "outreach" to Hispanics. In actual fact, he'll help her even more strongly support illegal immigration, as Yzaguirre's history shows.

NCLR is a considered-mainstream group that has links to and funds extremists. Last year, Karl Rove spoke at their convention.

Yzaguirre says:

"Hillary Clinton has spent more than three decades advocating on behalf of those who are invisible in America... Not only is she the most experienced and qualified candidate to be president, Senator Clinton has the ability to bring people together to get results and move this country forward."

In 2001 he was named to Sears' board of directors, and he also supported legalization for all illegal aliens:

"Whatever law will be passed must apply to everyone equally... I think we're talking millions, otherwise I don't think we have something we would be interested in."

And:

In 2001, the National Council of La Raza, conducted focus groups to see what the (American) public thought of the word "amnesty." Raul Yzaguirre, president of the group at the time, told the Dallas Morning News that as a result of the focus groups he advised Mexican President Vicente Fox never to use the word, instead referring to "regularization" or "legalization." Other euphemisms that have been developed are "normalization," "permanence," "earned adjustment," and "phased-in access to earned regularization."

And:

In March [2004], First Data/Western Union set up a $10 million "Empowerment Fund" to be used for Latino and pro-immigration causes. Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza (“The Race”); Sal Gomez, Chairman the Denver Hispanic Chamber Gomez; and Robert de Posada, President of the Latino Coalition, were appointed by First Data to the Fund's Advisory Board. The Empowerment Fund is separate and in addition to charitable donations totaling about $5.5 million that First Data made as part of settlements of the class-action lawsuits.

In this interesting 2001 Crossfire show he took umbrage at calling illegal aliens "illegal", sounded like a cheap labor pimp, refused to answer a question about what Mexico would do if millions tried to come across their southern border, and on and on.

He spoke out against the 2004 Temecula raids:

Last month, La Raza President Raul Yzaguirre called on the Bush administration to order an end to the Border Patrol's arrest of illegals in several inland Southern California communities, saying sweeps by a 12-member task force were "a clear assault on civil rights in an area with a sizable Latino population."

In 2005 he was named "part-time presidential professor of practice in community development and civil rights" in the Arizona State University College of Public Programs.

In 2003 the NCLR sued the Justice Department:

[The National Council of La Raza and others] allege that the Justice Department and the FBI have unlawfully entered information on civil immigration violations into a federal criminal database, the National Crime Information Center, which state and local police access millions of times each day to probe the background of everyone from individuals suspected of crimes to people caught violating traffic regulations... "Co-opting state and local police to make immigration arrests undermines public safety and encourages racial profiling," said Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza.

From March of this year we learn that in addition to Yzaguirre, Hillary has hired Jose Villarreal, "a former aide to Bill Clinton and a fundraiser for John Kerry in 2004".

In 2004 he appeared at a demonstration in support of the anti-American DREAM Act.

From 2004's "Democrats' Forked Tongue on Health Care, National Security" discussing

...The Republicans' sweep to victory in the presidential and congressional elections on November 2, creates an opportunity to repeal Clinton-era Executive Order 13166, which declared that all recipients of federal funds must provide translation services into any language anyone speaks at any time... Bush Administration appointee, Assistant Atty. Gen. Alex Acosta, has continued Clinton's language policy. Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza has said that Acosta "played a pivotal role" in the continued enforcement of E.O. 13166.

UPDATE: Here's an article with a little more on him.

Posted to Politics at April 12, 2007 12:08 PM