White House and Homeland Security officials joined about 100 police chiefs and administrators from across the U.S. last week at a ""National Summit on Local Immigration Policies"" hosted by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) in Phoenix. (Arizona Republic, July 23, 2009). PERF describes itself as a ""national membership organization of progressive police executives from the largest city, county and state law enforcement agencies."" (PERF).
The PERF Summit was funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation (PERF Release), which also has provided substantial funding for many of the major organizations advocating amnesty legislation and other policies that undermine the enforcement of our immigration laws. For example, in March of this year, Carnegie announced it was awarding the following grants:
$2,400,000 to the Center for American Progress toward support for a collaborative that will develop and build consensus around workable immigration policies and to launch a center-wide immigration project;
$300,000 to Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) toward its immigrant rights advocacy program;
$500,000 to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund toward its immigrant civic engagement project;
$50,000 to the Economic Policy Institute for a project on promoting consensus in the labor community around comprehensive immigration reform;
$750,000 to the Migration Policy Institute toward support of the national center on immigrant integration; and
$500,000 to the Catholic Legal Immigration Network for general support (Carnegie Newsline, March 2009).
The Carnegie Corporation has also given the National Council of La Raza numerous grants worth millions of dollars over the past two decades. (Carnegie Corporation). Not surprisingly, during the closed-door meetings, the PERF Summit participants agreed that the U.S. needs a ""comprehensive"" new law containing guest-worker programs, amnesty for illegal aliens, and federal enforcement of the prohibition against hiring illegal aliens. (Arizona Republic, July 23, 2009). They were also highly critical of the 287(g) program, which facilitates the training of state and local law enforcement officers on the enforcement of federal immigration laws. (Id.).
PERF's position is typical of what amnesty supporters have promised in the past: vigorous enforcement tomorrow in exchange for amnesty today. Of course, that begs the question: why would amnesty proponents support enforcement in the future when they have done everything they can to undermine present enforcement efforts? One of the attendees at the PERF meeting was Dennis Burke, a senior adviser to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano who agreed with the position of attendees at the forum and said that ""Congress needs to work quickly."" Burke also stated that ""Secretary Napolitano has said the situation the country is in is not defensible."" (Id.).
It is worth pointing out that ""the situation"" that Burke has called indefensible has arisen in no small part due to the decisions that Napolitano has made since becoming Secretary. Many of these decisions have actually undermined enforcement. For example, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a worksite enforcement action in Bellingham, WA, Napolitano expressed outrage and then released the arrested illegal aliens and provided them with work authorization. (See FAIR's Press Release, April 1, 2009). In addition, Napolitano has also: (1) rescinded the no-match rule, which would have notified employers when employees have used an SSN that did not match their name (See FAIR's Legislative [Update], July 13, 2009); (2) delayed requirements that federal contractors use E-Verify (See FAIR's Legislative [Update], June 8, 2009); and (3) proposed gutting the REAL ID law which prevents illegal aliens from obtaining state-issued, secure IDs in favor of PASS ID, which will allow illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses (See FAIR's Legislative Analysis and Chart on REAL ID versus PASS ID). (See FAIR's Legislative [Update], July 20, 2009).
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21085&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1721#3
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