Posted on December 5, 2005

GOP Congress Earmarks $4 Million for Leftist Pro-Illegal Alien Group

Amanda B. Carpenter, Human Events Online, Dec. 2, 2005

Thanks to a congressional earmark, an open-borders advocacy group that pushes for driver’s licenses, free in-state tuition and healthcare for illegal aliens and bilingual requirements for state agencies and ballots is slated to get $4 million in new taxpayer money to add to the more than $30 million it has received from various federal agencies since 1996.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Spanish for “the race,” will get its latest grant through an appropriations bill passed by Congress on November 18. The Joint Explanatory Statement of HR 3058, available on the House’s Rules Committee website lists 1,100 plus earmarks in the bill, including La Raza’s grant under the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Self-Help and Assisted Ownership Programs. Under this account La Raza will receive four times as much as the Special Olympics, which won a $1-million earmark.

La Raza is the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy organization. It was adamantly opposed to the REAL ID Act, which will prevent states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens if they want them to be usable for federal purposes. It is also opposed to the CLEAR Act, which would grant state and local law enforcement agencies that wish to do so the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

Spontaneous Spending

The Capital Research Center (CRC), which rates public interest groups on a scale of 1 to 8, with 1 equaling “radical left” and 8 equaling “free market right,” gave La Raza a rating of 2, the same rating it gave People for the American Way and NARAL Pro-Choice America. CRC reports that La Raza’s net assets totaled nearly $52 million in 2003.

La Raza Senior Vice President Charles Kamasaki explained in an e-mail that his group typically gets government grants three different ways: The largest awards probably come from competitive bidding processes for grants and contracts said Kamasaki. But other grants include congressional earmarks — such as the one in this year’s Housing appropriation — and discretionary funds allocated from agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which have all provided tax dollars to NCLR.

NCLR also employs an appropriations lobbyist who works to secure federal earmarks for the group. Tax forms available from CRC also reveal that La Raza spends about $1 million per year on lobbyists, fundraising and web design.

The $4-million grant in this year’s housing bill, which is the fifth in a series of similar congressional earmarks, wasn’t expected, Kamaski said. “This was a somewhat unusual year in that this earmark was not specifically requested,” he explained. He also said the funding is targeted primarily toward a La Raza subsidiary that has made over $40 million in loans to NCLR affiliates and other community based groups such as charter school facilities, heath clinics, day-care centers and affordable housing developments.

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One possible culprit is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) who sits on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handled the bill carrying the earmark. In 2001, Reid sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting $5 million for La Raza’s housing programs. That same year Reid also received NCLR’s Capital Award for “his commitment to advance legislation priorities of the Latino Community.” In gratitude, Reid told NCLR, “La Raza is like the biblical David, fighting all these Goliaths.”

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