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(CNSNews.com) – An 18-year veteran of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), who advocated for federal legislation to give the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship, has been tapped for President-elect Barack Obama’s White House staff. Cecilia Muñoz, who currently serves as senior vice president for the office of research, advocacy and legislation at the NCLR, will serve as director for intergovernmental affairs in the Obama administration.

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Quote: The NCLR Homeownership Network (NHN), a network of nearly 50 community-based counseling providers, works with more than 30,000 families annually. Our subsidiary, the Raza Development Fund (RDF), is the nation s largest Hispanic Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). Since 1999, RDF has provided $400 million in financing to locally-based development projects throughout the country. These relationships have increased NCLR's institutional knowledge of how Latinos interact with the mortgage market and how well the government regulates financial services markets. As foreclosure rates continue to rise in all loan categories, it is clear that current efforts are falling short of their...

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez joined local and state Republican political leaders in Ontario on Friday as part of an effort to build support among Latinos for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid. In his speech to about 100 people at Ontario's Doubletree Hotel, Gutierrez focused on broad economic issues and McCain's experiences as a prisoner of war and in Congress to make the case for why McCain is a better choice for president than Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Gutierrez did not stick to Latino-specific themes but talked instead about McCain's proposals on taxes, trade and energy. He said McCain, R-Ariz.,...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – The National Council of La Raza spends most of its time protecting and advancing the rights of Latinos through advocacy and community work. But as it wraps up its convention downtown, it has found itself defending its name. That's because activists who oppose illegal immigration are saying in e-mails, during street protests and through the media that “La Raza” means “The Race,” and have been calling the organization a hate group. The accusations have prompted soul-searching among NCLR supporters as to what the name actually means and stands for. Most say the situation is the result...

July 14, 2008 ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery to the 2008 National Council of La Raza Convention in San Diego, CA, today at 12:45 p.m. PT (3:45 p.m. ET): Thank you, Jane, for that kind introduction. Thank you, also to the leadership of the National Council of La Raza, and its board of directors. I'm very pleased to be with you again to discuss some of the issues in this campaign that most concern you. As you know, this isn't my first address to La Raza. I'm proud to...

Sen. Barack Obama promised yesterday that he would make overhauling immigration policy a top priority of his first year in office if he is elected president as he chided Republican John McCain for backing away from his own comprehensive immigration bill. Obama addressed the four-day National Council of La Raza conference, which has attracted more than 20,000 people to the San Diego Convention Center. McCain, a senator from Arizona and the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, will address the convention today. “I know Senator McCain used to buck his party on immigration in fighting for comprehensive reform, and I admired him for...

John McCain today is poised to make the biggest mistake of his 2008 presidential run. The presumptive Republican nominee will address the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza in San Diego. La Raza is billed by too many as simply "the nation's largest Hispanic rights group." But this is perhaps the most radical apologist group for illegal immigration and the "rights" of illegal aliens -- and worse.

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,...

The San Diego City Council will vote next Tuesday to declare July 8 “National Council of La Raza Day.” Well, they already gave their blessing to “Happy ACLU Day” despite the litigious group’s long-standing efforts to take down the Mount Soledad cross. Might as well put their weight behind the ethnic supremacist group fighting against assimilation, funding reconquista schools, advocating speech suppressiong, and promoting lawlessness, too!

San Diego usually is a fine place to be under any circumstances, but for a couple of days this July the political world will flock there for clues about one of the crucial questions in the John McCain-Barack Obama matchup: Whither the Latino vote? The National Council of La Raza, a leading Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, announced today that both presidential contenders have accepted invitations to speak at its July 12-15 convention in San Diego. No details yet on when each will speak, but their appearances likely will be among the most important they make during the month....

Some angry conservatives will tell you they have a good reason to call the Republican presidential candidate "Juan" McCain. He has alienated many conservative voters with his position on immigration, and he apparently plans to worsen the problem in July with a speech before the National Council of La Raza, the vociferously anti-American and leftist pro-immigration group. As bad as the Democrats are when it comes this kind of blatant pandering, Republicans will, apparently, try their best. Problem is, pandering to radical Hispanics won't help McCain get to the White House, and may likely hurt him among those who will...

The term “La Raza“, or “the Race” originated in a book titled “La Raza Cósmica,” written in 1929 by José Vasconcelos. The book’s title translates to “The Cosmic Race,” and was Vasconcelos’ attempt to explain “the ideology of a future ‘fifth race’ in the Americas; an agglomeration of all the races in the world with no respect to color or number to erect a new civilization: Universópolis.”

The open-borders media has been AWOL on John McCain’s decision to speak to the radical racialist group, La Raza/The Race in July. He has been allowed to skate on the issue in several recent sit-down interviews. Many of the same pundits who blasted Barack Obama for his ties to the radical racialist Jeremiah Wright have nothing to say about McCain’s longtime association with the shamnesty-pushing, sovereignty-undermining, publicly-subsidized shakedown artists of La Raza/The Race. Not everyone’s looking the other way. Editorial page editor Colin McNickle at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review warned today: “McCain had made significant progress in reaching out to conservatives...

John McCain appeared in the “No-Spin Zone” tonight–and spun, spun, spun his way through a few, scant, superficial questions about immigration. Asked whether he would do anything about illegal alien sanctuary cities, he shrugged off the question by muttering that “of course” he didn’t approve of them (but was silent on taking any proactive measures to cut off their funding). Having dispensed with that, McCain then quickly gave his new slippery, flip-flop formulation about how we need to “secure the borders” AND have “comprehensive immigration enforcement/” “temporary guest work plan” (translation: amnesty) and “deal with the 12 million people already...

John McCain has used these weeks of Republican calm to dive into the Democratic lunch pail. This strategy clearly assumes a Barack Obama candidacy. If demographics are destiny -- as the political sages keep telling us -- Democratic demographics may offer some choice cuts to the presumed Republican nominee. By dumb luck, Republicans have chosen their one candidate who projects a moderate image, hasn't alienated Latinos and offers an appealing life story to boot. The core problem for Democrats is that Obama's backers are reliable Democrats, whereas Hillary Clinton's are unreliable Democrats. Less than half of the Clinton voters in...

House Republicans are spreading the word about the La Raza earmark in the pork-laden housing bill that I’ve been reporting on (see here and here). Fresh from the desk of House GOP leader John Boehner: Democrats are prepared to bring to the House floor legislation purportedly written to assist Americans impacted by the recent housing slump. But in recent days, it has become increasingly clear who this legislation is really out to serve: scam artists, speculators, and trial lawyers. That’s right: the bill forces taxpayers to pay for a massive $300 billion bailout at the expense of innocent victims who...

When Ms. Murguia of the National Council of "The Race" announces that "when free speech transforms into hate speech, we've got to draw that line " we don't know whether to laugh or cry, since her own organization's very nomenclature "The National Council of La Raza" is hate speech to the core. No other ethnic organization these days would dare to refer to themselves as "The Race." Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests), reflects the meaning of "race" in Spanish, not "the people" — and that's precisely why we don't hear of something...

Dear Senator McCain, I read today on Fox News that you plan to attend the La Raza annual conference in San Diego this July. “Outraged” is the first word that comes to mind, but my vote is what counts. You are meeting (again) with a group sworn to return the Southwestern United States to Mexico, but somehow leave the costs of education, healthcare, welfare, police and jails to the US taxpayer…all while your uninvited guests send billions of dollars home. To put things into relative terms, if you met with the Ku Klux Klan or The Nation of Islam, it...

The John McCain campaign celebrated Cinco de Mayo today by launching a Spanish-language version of its website–and announcing that McCain will speak at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza (that’s “The Race”). The campaign justifies his appearance by framing it as a gesture of inclusiveness and outreach that is “part of his commitment to talking with all Americans.” Yes, they see it as an act of tolerance to legitimize the militantly open-borders, anti-immigration enforcement, ethnic nationalists who call themselves “The Race.”