Janet Murguia/NCLR misleads to support illegal immigration (Kansas City, Minuteman issue)

The National Council of La Raza ("The Race") is an extremist-funding group that in turn is funded by large corporations [1] that profit from illegal activity. Senator Chris Dodd even wants to give them millions of dollars.

They recently pulled their 2009 convention out of Kansas City, MO because a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was appointed to that city's Parks Board. Local Hispanic leaders even went as far as trying to deliver a letter to that board member's house in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate her.

Now, their president, Janet Murguia, offers "La Raza left because it objects to extremism". She objects to the "extremism" of the MCDC and pretends it isn't about policy. Since her group continually supports illegal immigration, and the MCDC opposes it, that's highly questionable.

Here's the only thing she has to say about everything that's been involved in this issue, including the letter:

While I can't address every issue raised since the controversy erupted, the views and passion expressed - on both sides of the issue - deserve a response.

Obviously, someone else would address a possible act of intimidation, but I guess that's more than we should expect from her.

Then, she brings up a quote from MCDC leader Chris Simcox; I don't know the context, but it appears to have been originally reported by Gustavo Arellano, someone who has a clear agenda and, even if he got the quote accurate, doesn't provide any context [2].

Then, she discusses an original member of the Minuteman Project who was sending messages to a Nazi group... "privately". It should be obvious to anyone that none of the Minutemen groups want such connections, and I'm not going to even bother to verify that after her extra-curricular activities were discovered she was tossed from the group.

Then, she delves into the ADL's "Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream." The problems with part of that report are discussed at the link, and she helps point out yet another problem:

The founder of the Dustin Inman Society, D.A. King, said in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that immigrants are "not here to mow your lawn - they're here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me."

Bolding added. And, in fact, that's similar to what's in the ADL's report [3]:

Speaking at a Newton County (Georgia) Republican Party meeting in April 2007, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, King reportedly told attendees that undocumented immigrants are "not here to mow your lawn – they're here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me."

Now, here's the kicker (which everyone knew was coming). The Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Bill Nigut, says [4]:

In a speech to a handful of Georgia Republicans in Covington earlier this year, King cleverly intertwined our legitimate fears of the threat from Islamic terrorists with a rant against undocumented Mexicans. At one point, according to a report in the Rockdale Citizen newspaper, he displayed a mock-up of a Mexican photo ID card, filled in with the name supplied by King: "Al Qaida Gonzalez." ...When he told the gathering that "They're not here to mow your lawn - they're here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you and me," King says he was speaking of the Islamic threat. But since Muslim yard services tend to be few and far between, his intentional mixing of images seems clear: He is out to create fear about all illegal immigrants, be they Islamic terrorists or Mexican gardeners.

So, now we see that King wasn't refering to "immigrants" (Murguia's word) or "undocumented immigrants" (the ADL's report's words), but to Islamist infiltrators. In other words, Murguia and the ADL report are highly misleading, and that was obviously intentional. (Further, the only "reporting" from the AJC that I could find is in a blog post, but I didn't check their archives.) At the last link, King says he was refering to this government report (PDF). (The Rockdale Citizen doesn't appear to have online archives: rockdalecitizen.com)

Obviously, both Janet Murguia and the ADL aren't just sloppy, what they say can't be trusted.

[1] discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=153
[2] ocweekly.com/news/news/see-tombstone-nab-a-mexican/21117/
[3] adl.org/civil_rights/anti_immigrant/da_king.asp
[4] mdjonline.com/content/index/showcontentitem/area/1/section/17/item/97577.html

kan

Immigration2007b · Sun, 11/04/2007 - 15:45 · · Importance: 4