Concern Voiced Over Gonzales' Connections with La Raza
by Chad Groening
December 2, 2004
(AgapePress) - An immigration reform organization is concerned that the man President Bush has tapped to be the next U.S. attorney general has been involved with an organization that opposes the enforcement of immigration laws.The pro-life community has already expressed its concerns about White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, noting that while a Texas Supreme Court justice he chose not to rule against abortion, in any situation. Now the Washington, DC-based Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is calling Gonzales to task for his reported involvement with the National Council of La Raza, which has endorsed his nomination for attorney general.
FAIR spokeswoman Susan Tully says La Raza unabashedly supports rights for illegal aliens. "When you're talking about the attorney general of the United States, he would be considered the 'top cop' [for the country]," Tully explains. "And if his leanings and bias are sympathetic to illegal alien lawbreakers, that should be a huge concern to those of us who believe in law and order -- and that those laws are there for a reason."
And Tully points out that the phrase "la raza" means "the race" for a reason. "To take it in context, would you be concerned if there a white nominee who had been involved with the Ku Klux Klan or some other white supremacist-type of group?" she asks.
Tully says if a former Klansman had been nominated to the nation's highest law-enforcement position, there would be no end to the media outrage, demanding that such an individual could not possibly be the attorney general. "Yet there is no outrage at all that [Gonzales] has belonged in the past and been involved in that organization [La Raza]," she notes.
In 2001, Gonzales was asked if his own personal feelings about abortion would play a role in his decisions. He responded: "The question is, what is the law, what is the precedent, what is binding in rendering your decision. Sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive."
If confirmed as the new AG, Gonzales would have an opportunity to apply that same philosophy to the issue of illegal immigration.
