New Jersey governor Jon Corzine today signed an executive order creating a "Commission on New Americans", a sort of far-left welcome wagon for both legal and illegal immigrants. News report here, order at [1]. This follows last year's recommendation from another panel that advocated for benefits such as in-state tuition (see the DREAM Act) and drivers licenses for illegal aliens. The current order doesn't say anything about immigration status and doesn't include any variants of "illegal" or "undocumented", meaning that it also includes illegal aliens. The Commission will end up enabling and perhaps even encouraging illegal immigration.

Looking into the affiliations of those listed at [1] is left as an exercise; if you spot anyone interesting please leave a comment. Note also that there are similar efforts in other states; Gil Cedillo wanted to create a similar board in California, Rod Blagojevich created one in Illinois, and Tom Vilsack and Mike Huckabee created similar programs in Iowa and Arkansas.

Back to Corzine's order:

The public members may include representatives from immigrant and immigrant-serving community based organizations, philanthropic organizations, advocacy groups, businesses, including immigrant entrepreneurs, unions, academia, and faith-based organizations... The Commission shall develop a resource guide that will navigate and support the approximately 1.8 million immigrants through the maze of state and local resources that provide targeted services to immigrants, including referrals to nonprofit and faith-based organizations, English language acquisition, citizenship acquisition, accreditation and qualification services, and employment support.

That means that far-left board members will funnel money to far-left groups that support illegal immigration, and it will serve as yet another way for the Democratic Party to build and consolidate their power.

Yet another way to consolidate power is to increase the numbers of persons - such as translators, native speakers working in various professions, and so on - who are beholden to their largess:

The Commission will discuss the implementation of a "holistic statewide policy of immigrant integration and ensure that all state agencies provide services in an efficient and culturally and linguistically competent manner... [by providing] efficient and culturally and linguistically competent services New Jersey will enhance the capacity of its immigrant workforce...

[1] nj.gov/governor/news/news/2010/approved/20100112.html