One Of Ford's Creations: Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
MALDEF's website: http://www.maldef.org
From DiscoverTheNetworks:
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) is the most influential Hispanic advocacy group in the United States. Founded in 1968 with a $2.2 million "seed grant" from the Ford Foundation, MALDEF remains, to this day, Ford's largest Hispanic policy recipient. Because it is not a membership organization, MALDEF does not depend upon private contributions from constituents of the communities it claims to represent. Composed of a 35-member board of directors and a staff of 75 employees (including 22 attorneys), it receives most of its funding from a few corporations and large foundations - most notably the Ford Foundation, which, for more than three decades, has been America's leading benefactor to organizations promoting unrestricted immigration. By the turn of the twenty-first century, Ford had given more than $25 million to MALDEF over the years. Just between 1996 and 1998, MALDEF received more than $9 million in combined grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation. It has also received generous funding from the Ahmanson Foundation; the AT&T Foundation; the Joyce Foundation; the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Open Society Institute; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; and the Verizon Foundation.
From its inception, MALDEF's avowed purpose was "to assist Hispanics (legal or otherwise) in using legal means to secure their rights"; "to foster sound public policies, laws and programs to safeguard the civil rights of . . . Latinos living in the United States, and to empower the Latino community to fully participate in our society." But in 1998, MALDEF co-founder Mario Obledo bluntly articulated a much more radical agenda: "California is going to be a Hispanic state, and anyone who doesn't like it should leave. They should go back to Europe."
MALDEF is the ideological kindred spirit of the National Lawyers Guild, promoting free college tuition for illegal immigrants, lowered educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, and the right of criminals to vote in American elections. Advocating open borders, MALDEF's position is that all aliens, legal and illegal, should be entitled to all the rights and privileges afforded to U.S. citizens. Trumpeting the value of immigrants who currently reside in the U.S. in violation of immigration law, MALDEF states that America's "failed immigration policy . . . has resulted in a complete lack of legal recognition of millions of immigrants who are the backbone of the U.S. economy." "[E]veryone is aware," declares MALDEF, "that there are over 4 million undocumented Mexicans living and working here in the U.S., providing our services, construction, agricultural and other industries with essential labor, by doing the jobs that U.S. citizens and residents do not want." MALDEF has exhorted Congress "to consider legalization of the 8-9 million undocumented persons living and working here in the U.S."
In October 1994, the U.S. initiated Operation Gatekeeper, a program intended to restore some integrity to a portion of the California-Mexico border, across which countless thousands of illegal aliens streamed each year. Condemning this program for callously "diverting" illegal border-crossers "from California to the harsh and dangerous Arizona desert," MALDEF charged that Americans opposing unrestricted immigration were motivated largely by "racism and xenophobia."
MALDEF opposes English-only laws, and has taken a stand against allowing state and local police to enforce immigration laws - on the grounds that "it's very, very bad for public safety" because "if immigrants are afraid that they may get deported, they don't report crimes."
MALDEF endorsed the 2002 Market Workers Justice Campaign of the activist coalition Communities in Solidarity with Immigrant Workers. This campaign called for increased wages and benefits for Korean and Latino immigrant workers, including those living illegally in the United States.
MALDEF was a signatory - along with more than 120 other leftwing organizations - to a 2000 campaign to increase the minimum wage. MALDEF also co-signed a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress "to oppose the Domestic Security Enhancement Act" (a.k.a. Patriot Act II), which was then under consideration. These signatories stated that the new legislation "fail[ed] to respect our time-honored liberties," and "contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers . . . that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights." In addition, MALDEF has given its organizational endorsement to the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, a project of the California-based Coalition for Civil Liberties (CCL). The CLL tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions creating Civil Liberties Safe Zones; that is, to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act.
Moreover, MALDEF endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act (CLRA) of 2004, which was introduced by Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Russell Feingold, Richard Durbin, and Jon Corzine, and Democratic Representatives Howard Berman and William Delahunt. The CLRA was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
From DiscoverTheNetworks:
- The most influential Hispanic advocacy group in the
- A creation of the Ford Foundation, from which is has received more than $25 million
- Advocates open borders, free college tuition for illegal immigrants, lowered educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, and voting rights for criminals
- "
- MALDEF opposes the Real ID act, which will require individuals to prove citizenship before obtaining a drivers license, as stated on their website [this bullet added by blog author]
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) is the most influential Hispanic advocacy group in the United States. Founded in 1968 with a $2.2 million "seed grant" from the Ford Foundation, MALDEF remains, to this day, Ford's largest Hispanic policy recipient. Because it is not a membership organization, MALDEF does not depend upon private contributions from constituents of the communities it claims to represent. Composed of a 35-member board of directors and a staff of 75 employees (including 22 attorneys), it receives most of its funding from a few corporations and large foundations - most notably the Ford Foundation, which, for more than three decades, has been America's leading benefactor to organizations promoting unrestricted immigration. By the turn of the twenty-first century, Ford had given more than $25 million to MALDEF over the years. Just between 1996 and 1998, MALDEF received more than $9 million in combined grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation. It has also received generous funding from the Ahmanson Foundation; the AT&T Foundation; the Joyce Foundation; the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Open Society Institute; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; and the Verizon Foundation.
From its inception, MALDEF's avowed purpose was "to assist Hispanics (legal or otherwise) in using legal means to secure their rights"; "to foster sound public policies, laws and programs to safeguard the civil rights of . . . Latinos living in the United States, and to empower the Latino community to fully participate in our society." But in 1998, MALDEF co-founder Mario Obledo bluntly articulated a much more radical agenda: "California is going to be a Hispanic state, and anyone who doesn't like it should leave. They should go back to Europe."
MALDEF is the ideological kindred spirit of the National Lawyers Guild, promoting free college tuition for illegal immigrants, lowered educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, and the right of criminals to vote in American elections. Advocating open borders, MALDEF's position is that all aliens, legal and illegal, should be entitled to all the rights and privileges afforded to U.S. citizens. Trumpeting the value of immigrants who currently reside in the U.S. in violation of immigration law, MALDEF states that America's "failed immigration policy . . . has resulted in a complete lack of legal recognition of millions of immigrants who are the backbone of the U.S. economy." "[E]veryone is aware," declares MALDEF, "that there are over 4 million undocumented Mexicans living and working here in the U.S., providing our services, construction, agricultural and other industries with essential labor, by doing the jobs that U.S. citizens and residents do not want." MALDEF has exhorted Congress "to consider legalization of the 8-9 million undocumented persons living and working here in the U.S."
In October 1994, the U.S. initiated Operation Gatekeeper, a program intended to restore some integrity to a portion of the California-Mexico border, across which countless thousands of illegal aliens streamed each year. Condemning this program for callously "diverting" illegal border-crossers "from California to the harsh and dangerous Arizona desert," MALDEF charged that Americans opposing unrestricted immigration were motivated largely by "racism and xenophobia."
MALDEF opposes English-only laws, and has taken a stand against allowing state and local police to enforce immigration laws - on the grounds that "it's very, very bad for public safety" because "if immigrants are afraid that they may get deported, they don't report crimes."
MALDEF endorsed the 2002 Market Workers Justice Campaign of the activist coalition Communities in Solidarity with Immigrant Workers. This campaign called for increased wages and benefits for Korean and Latino immigrant workers, including those living illegally in the United States.
MALDEF was a signatory - along with more than 120 other leftwing organizations - to a 2000 campaign to increase the minimum wage. MALDEF also co-signed a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress "to oppose the Domestic Security Enhancement Act" (a.k.a. Patriot Act II), which was then under consideration. These signatories stated that the new legislation "fail[ed] to respect our time-honored liberties," and "contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers . . . that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights." In addition, MALDEF has given its organizational endorsement to the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, a project of the California-based Coalition for Civil Liberties (CCL). The CLL tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions creating Civil Liberties Safe Zones; that is, to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act.
Moreover, MALDEF endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act (CLRA) of 2004, which was introduced by Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Russell Feingold, Richard Durbin, and Jon Corzine, and Democratic Representatives Howard Berman and William Delahunt. The CLRA was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
posted by cookies at 7:52 AM
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