October 25, 2011
...the Chamber of Commerce and other business associations had launched conferences and lobbying efforts at the state level through a group called ImmigrationWorks USA, a coalition of businesses working to promote comprehensive immigration reform. If there was ever going to be a conservative player in the amnesty fight, it would be here. The public tends to think of businessmen as conservative on political policy.
The point man for ImmigrationWorks USA is Todd Landfried. Earlier in his career, Landfried worked for the Clinton Administration's "reinventing government team" and also worked with Vice President Al Gore's "Intergovernmental Team." After leaving Washington, Landfried had a Democratic-oriented radio program in Phoenix for several years which one newspaper called a "far-lefty" program. He recently served as the Executive Director of the Maricopa County (Phoenix area) Democratic Party organization and subsequently as a party officer.
Under the direction of ImmigrationWorks USA, he chaperones the Compact on its tour through the states and lobbies it before state legislatures. He also presents the Compact to the public as a conservative document in ImmigrationWorks USA conferences. His audience is unaware of his liberal history and beliefs or the background of the founder of ImmigrationWorks USA.
The Board of Directors of ImmigrationsWorks USA:
Randel K. Johnson- He is a senior Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce responsible for labor, immigration, and employee benefits issues before Congress. Further, Johnson is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Forum, the mastermind of the Utah Compact. Johnson's three-way board membership links the major groups who created the Utah Compact and are pushing for amnesty.
Marshall Fitz- Director of Immigration Policy at the aforementioned Center for American Progress. Before he came to ImmigrationWorks USA, Fitz served as Director of Advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a big promoter of comprehensive immigration reform. The AILA has close ties to the National Lawyers Guild, which is tied to the Communist Party.
Jim Kolbe - Former Arizona Congressman. Kolbe sits on the Board of the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Mexico Institute "seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship," with particular attention to security cooperation, economic integration, and migration.
Andrew Selee- ...the Director of the Mexico Institute, is also a board member of ImmigrationWorks USA... an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, is an associate of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI) and a member of the Mexican Collective for Security and Democracy (CASEDE). He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relation's Independent Task Force on Immigration, chaired by Jeb Bush and Thomas F. MacLarty; as well as a steering committee member of the Migration Policy Institute's Task Force on Immigration and America's Future.
Their ultimate goal has always been to erase the border between the U.S. and Mexico, U.S. sovereignty notwithstanding.
ImmigrationWorks USA sponsored a national conference in Washington, D.C., in July to make a little more noise about the Utah Compact and keep the issue in front of Congress. In a meeting with U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) the day before the conference began, immigration advocates settled on their new spin, which was really an old spin known as "the economic argument." After the meeting, Schumer told Politico reporters, "We decided we ought to start highlighting the fact that immigration creates jobs rather than takes them away .... Everyone agreed that is how we are going to start talking about immigration, as a job creator."
While Hispanic activists stage protests outside state legislatures, the "suits" come inside and give testimony before legislative committees about how reasonable and how conservative comprehensive immigration reform is. The "suits" are the calm, respectable voice of the movement. While the protestors figuratively beat up on the legislators, the "suits" speak gently and softly, a welcome relief from the shouting demonstrators outside the state building. Like a good cop/bad cop operation, the vitriolic protestors with their Saul Alinsky tactics wear the legislators down and the "suits" then gently lead them to the desired finish...amnesty. Working together,they surround the legislators and knead them like clay until they absorb them into willing acceptance of comprehensive immigration reform. Like a one-two punch, they think that the legislators and Congress will fall for the trap.
The Utah Compact was dreamed up by radicals, facilitated by radicals, fine-tuned by radicals, and funded by radicals. Now it's slithering from state to state, escorted by radicals who would have you believe that it's nothing more than a nice little conservative message.
But make no mistake. There are NO conservatives who support the Utah Compact except for some who mistook its statement of principles as well intended. Taken singly, we can all agree with some of its principles. But taken in its entirety, the Compact is devilishly deceptive and manipulative.
Wherever you live, you can expect the Utah Compact to show up in your state, pushed by coalitions of churches, Chambers of Commerce, and other business groups.
