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Latino Arab American Advisory Committee Civil Rights Training February 19, 2011 9:00a.m. – 12:30p.m. UCI-Social Sciences Plaza B Room: SSPB 1208 3151 Social Science Plaza, Irvine, CA 92617 Parking: http://www.uci.edu/campus_maps.php Moderator: * Ray Cordova, South County Labor Chair Introduction: * Rima Nashashibi and Benny Diaz, Co-Chairs, Latino Arab American Advisory Committee Featuring: * Richard Sambrano, Civil Rights Co-Chair, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Retired Prosecutor * Sergeant Mike Abdeen, Los Angeles County Sherriff, Muslim Community Affairs Closing: * Thomas Gonzales, California LULAC Civil Rights Chair, LAAAC Member More information: Benny Diaz, CA LULAC State Director, bennydiaz@sbcglobal.net, (714) 357-4328...

At yesterday's launch of the campaign by state legislators to ban "birthright citizenship", activists from La Raza, LULAC and ACLU showed the tantrums and penchant for stifling dissent we have come to expect. One even shoved to the floor a senior citizen who calmly asked him to leave. Take a good look: this is who is fighting to maintain the scandal of "anchor babies" in America. They must and will be defeated. Video link: HEREJoin Stand With Arizona on Facebook (FReeper-run)

While attending a discussion on birthright citizenship held by the State Legislators for Legal Immigration at the National Press Club in Washington this morning, I was able to witness the true face of the pro-amnesty, pro-illegal immigration crowd. On at least four occasions, the so-called "pro-immigrant" activists attempted to stop discussion by rudely interrupting the speakers and shouting down state legislators and professors. ABC News has some raw video footage of the efforts to stifle debate, including the effort by one disruptive activist to "accidentally" fall while a senior citizen attempted to escort him to the door. The elderly gentleman...

DALLAS — Ramsey Muniz received 214,149 votes as a third-party candidate in Texas's 1972 gubernatorial race. Almost 22 years later, he received a life sentence for drug charges. Now the candidate turned convict, 67, spends his days in a federal prison hoping a last-ditch effort to free him will succeed before it's too late. Muniz has been a political activist, a Hispanic leader, a gubernatorial candidate, a high school and college football star, a drug felon, a bail jumper, a fugitive and now, at the end of his life, aging inmate number 40288-115. A series of federal drug convictions culminated...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today spoke with incoming president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Margaret Moran, and congratulated her on her recent election: “I had the pleasure of speaking with my friend Margaret today and congratulating her on her recent election to serve as the President of LULAC. LULAC represents some of the most accomplished and motivated Latino leaders in the country, and Margaret is well prepared to sit at the helm of this powerful organization. As a Texan, she also brings a unique perspective to this national organization, with firsthand knowledge of the dynamic...

The national presidency of the League of United Latin American Citizens passed Saturday from one San Antonio woman to another in what was touted as a historic election at the group's annual convention in New Mexico. Margaret Moran succeeds Rosa Rosales as head of the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, beating two opponents in polling of representatives from 700 local councils who gathered at the Albuquerque Convention Center. [. . .] “Margaret is not a politician,” the group's website says. “She is an activist who is ready to lead as National President because she has qualifications you can see...

The leader of the nation's largest Hispanic rights group has a message for senators and congressmen on comprehensive immigration reform. Rosa Rosales says the League of United Latin American Citizens will aggressively target anyone in Congress who isn't supporting reform efforts. [. . .] Rosales pounded her fist on a podium and urged delegates to organize voter registration drives. She says if elected officials don't support LULAC's effort, "they're going to be shaking in their boots" because she says comprehensive immigration reform is coming.

Latino groups blast Guard deployment By Jordy Yager - 05/26/10 05:42 PM ET Two major Latino advocacy groups blasted President Barack Obama’s plan to send 1,200 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the National Guardsmen are unprepared to deal with border issues and that the move will overshadow immigration reform. “As we have seen time and time again, efforts to overhaul our broken immigration system have taken a back seat to dramatic escalations of border enforcement including placing troops on the U.S. border to serve in a function for which they have not been trained,” said Rosa Rosales, the national...

In what proves to be an interesting follow-up to the question I raised last week about whether and when a candidate’s marriage to another elected official should be noted, Nadia Lockyer announced today that her campaign for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors District 2 seat collected about $168,000 in the latter half of last year – including, she notes, a $75,000 contribution from her husband’s Bill Lockyer for Treasurer re-election campaign. Bill Lockyer can certainly afford it; his committee had almost $9.4 million in the bank by mid-2009, and raised at least $58,000 more since then. He’s unopposed in...

"A Latino group is asking a judge to prevent state officials from canceling the registrations of more than 40,000 vehicles apparently driven by undocumented immigrants. The League of United Latin American Citizens filed the lawsuit against state officials in Franklin County Common Pleas Court this morning. The legal action comes two weeks before the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles plans to revoke the potentially fraudulently obtained license plates of those who cannot provide proof of legal U.S. residency."

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...