Thread: New Labor Secretary Pick (La Raza, MALDEF) - R. Alexander Acosta

DT should check on Mexican/American politics in CA, like de Leon....he made a mess all over the State. They are I love with Mexicans,whatever legal or illegal...

Judy wrote (excerpt):

Senate Republicans made a huge mistake not standing up for Puzder.

That's just crazy talk. Puzder was totally unfit for the position and practically every person opposed to illegal immigration knows that. Unfortunately you can't support someone you totally know is wrong for the job just because you're afraid of who his replacement may be.

If we actually knew who the 12 Republicans were opposed to Puzder, we would probably discover they were mostly non-amnesty supporters. It's the 40 Republicans that did support Puzder that I'm worried about.

Trump announces Miami native Alex Acosta as new Labor secretary nominee

February 16, 2017
Anthony Man

By turning to South Florida’s R. Alexander Acosta to serve as secretary of labor, President Donald Trump is breaking the mold he established with his earlier cabinet picks.

Most of the people Trump has nominated to lead government agencies are white men: wealthy businessmen and financiers with no government experience, conservative members of Congress, and former high-ranking military officers.

Acosta is different. Dean of Florida International University law school. Former U.S. Attorney for South Florida, leading an office whose corruption prosecutions included Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne and Palm Beach County commissioners Tony Masilotti, Mary McCarty and Warren Newell, all of whom went to prison. Harvard College and Law School graduate. Former assistant attorney general for civil rights. Former member of the National Labor Relations Board.

Acosta, who goes by Alex, is 48, grew up in Miami-Dade County and now lives in Coral Gables. He is Cuban-American and would be the only Hispanic in Trump’s cabinet.

In making the announcement at the White House, Trump said Acosta has had “a tremendous career.” The president predicted he would be “a tremendous secretary of labor.” Acosta wasn’t present.

It was a quick decision on the part of the president. Trump’s original nominee, Andrew Puzder, withdrew Wednesday after it became clear that too many Republicans – the party that controls the Senate – were reluctant to vote for his confirmation. Puzder, CEO of a fast food company, was damaged by revelations he failed to pay taxes on an undocumented housekeeper until he was nominated for labor secretary and by domestic abuse allegations, since recanted, from his former wife.

Because of his previous jobs, Acosta has been confirmed three times by the Senate. Trump has had difficulty getting speedy confirmation of his cabinet nominations.

The president devoted only 45 seconds of the announcement to his nomination of Acosta – then immediately diverted all attention to other issues. For an hour and ten minutes he held forth, first in a statement and then in a news conference, on his displeasure with the news media, the controversy swirling around his aides’ contacts with Russia, “the mess I inherited” in the U.S. and internationally, and his view that the Democrats had “screwed things up royally.”
Alexander Acosta through the years in South Florida

Alexander Acosta, dean of Florida International University's law school and former U.S. attorney, is reportedly President Donald Trump's choice for secretary of Labor.

Republicans praised the nomination of fellow Republican Acosta, who served as U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush.

“He has an impressive record of achievement,” U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami-Dade Republican, said in a statement.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called him “a phenomenal choice” to lead the Labor Department. “Alex has succeeded in all endeavors he has taken on, and managing the Department of Labor will be no different,” Rubio said in a statement.

On Twitter, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, another Miami-Dade County Republican, offered “Congrats to mi amigo, Alex, who has done a tremendous job at @FIU @fiulaw on his nomination as #LaborSecretary! Hell do a great job!” Later, she added, that Acosta is “competent, prepared, brilliant! Great pick!”

Ana Navarro, the Miami-Dade Republican political commentator who is an outspoken Trump critic, praised the nomination on Twitter: “Clean as a whistle. Smart. Loyal. Brings unique perspective of an immigrant community,” adding that “He's not a billionaire. Humble. Hard-working lawyer and Law School dean w/a squeaky clean reputation.”

South Florida Democrats were silent on Acosta, issuing statements instead on the proposed repeal of Obamacare, Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency and on abortion rights. Their offices declined to offer assessments of Acosta or didn’t respond to email inquires.

The Service Employees International Union, which was sharply critical of Puzder, took a wait-and-see stance toward Acosta on Thursday. “In the coming days and weeks, workers will find out more about how Alexander Acosta will ensure working people have pathways to good jobs on which they can raise their families,” SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement.

Among the most high-profile cases of Acosta’s tenure as U.S. Attorney for the territory from Fort Pierce to Key West was the prosecution of Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jack Abramoff on conspiracy and wire fraud charges. Abramoff pleaded guilty and served 43 months of a five-year, 10-month sentence. Acosta’s office also prosecuted Jose Padilla for terrorism and members of a Colombian drug ring responsible for bringing 15 tons of cocaine per month into the United States.

While Acosta was U.S. attorney, prosecutors cut a deal with billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein who was accused of having sex with dozens of underage girls. Prosecutors didn’t file federal charges against Epstein in return for his pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor for prostitution, for which he served 13 months in jail and served a year on house arrest.

A pending lawsuit claims the decision not to prosecute Epstein on federal charges violated two teenage girls’ rights as crime victims. A 2011 letter written by Acosta said that “Our judgment in this case, based on the evidence known at the time, was that it was better to have a billionaire serve time in jail, register as a sex offender and pay his victims restitution than risk a trial with a reduced likelihood of success.”

After Bush left office in 2009, Acosta became the second dean of FIU’s law school. In a written statement, Cesar L. Alvarez, senior chairman of the Greenberg Traurig law firm and member of FIU’s Board of Trustees, said Acosta “catapulted FIU Law to the ranks of top law schools in a very short time.” FIU has the highest bar examination passage rate of all Florida law schools.

Acosta was a clerk for Samuel Alito, now a U.S. Supreme Court justice, who was then a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Acosta is the chairman of U.S. Century Bank, the largest domestically-owned Hispanic community bank in Florida and one of the 15 largest Hispanic community banks in the nation.

In a statement issued by the White House, Acosta said he was “deeply grateful and honored” by the nomination. “I am eager to work tirelessly on behalf of the American worker.”

The labor secretary pick came up again when Trump and CNN correspondent Jim Acosta joked about whether he’s related to Alex Acosta. (He’s not.) Acosta said the phrase “Secretary Acosta” sounds good and Trump said he asked to have the nominee’s family tree checked to make sure there was no connection.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/pol...216-story.html

Judy, that story confirms the overflowing support for Alexander Acosta by open borders, illegal alien amnesty loving individuals and groups, whether Democrat or Republican. Acosta is beloved by those who we have fought against for years as we try to stop illegal immigration and comprehensive immigration reform and push for border security.

LULAC Statement on the Nomination of Alexander Acosta for U.S. Secretary of Labor

February 16, 2017

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, President Donald Trump announced his nomination for Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta. Acosta served as Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush, and was also a member of the National Labor Relations Board and served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

In response, LULAC National President, Roger C. Rocha, Jr. issued the following statement:

"The nomination of Alexander Acosta to serve as the first Latino in President Trump's cabinet is a welcome development. As Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Acosta prosecuted a record number of cases involving employers who were forcing their employees to speak English only, without a legitimate business reason. As Secretary of Labor, Acosta will be uniquely positioned to have a positive impact on the hard-working Latino men and women of this country - the very community whose interests LULAC represents. Acosta has joined LULAC on a number of cases involving voting rights and police brutality and has supported comprehensive immigration reform. Acosta's record of public service demonstrates a sensitivity to the challenges facing the minority community. His record also demonstrates a willingness to have a positive impact on those challenges. We are confident that if confirmed, he will serve as a positive force in the Trump administration; ensuring that issues and challenges affecting Latinos in the workplace are given due consideration before policy decisions are made."


The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit www.lulac.org.



http://lulac.org/news/pr/alexander_acosta_statement/#

We now have La Raza, MALDEF, and Lulac endorsing R. Alexander Acosta. We have not heard one illegal alien amnesty supporter oppose this man.


We need to be calling and emailing to oppose Acosta.

From GeorgiaPeach's article:

Acosta has joined LULAC on a number of cases involving voting rights and police brutality and has supported comprehensive immigration reform.

On the bright side, he does have some business experience, he's Chairman of an Hispanic community bank. He has prosecuted drug cartels with a $2.1 billion forfeiture. If you study the cases he prosecuted as US Attorney, it's entirely possible that he could nail down the link between the illegal aliens who work by day and run drugs by night. If they created a special division in the Department of Labor to work on this, I believe it would produce a lot of billions in forfeitures. The work places are the networks, the contacts, it's how they market the drugs once they're in and are able to do it so silently and unnoticed. It's also why they're protected by the establishment in the community, especially these "sanctuary cities".

Some Wiki background on him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Acosta

Who is Alexander Acosta? Trump Labor Nominee Supports Amnesty, Cheap Foreign Labor


by NEIL MUNRO16 Feb 2017


President Donald Trump’s new nominee to run the Department of Labor is an accomplished lawyer and a rising star in the GOP’s Hispanic and pro-diversity wing.


The nominee, Alexander Acosta, is a Harvard graduate and a former senior justice department official under George W. Bush. From 2005, he served as a federal attorney in Florida, where he successfully prosecuted a series of high-profile cases and is now a university dean.


If confirmed by the Senate to run the Department of Labor, Acosta will play an important role in overseeing and regulating the annual inflow of roughly 1 million contract workers. Those contract workers fill white-collar and blue-collar jobs throughout the economy and they also lower wages for American graduates and unskilled workers.

However, he’s likely to clash with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a populist who is expected to push for reduced use of foreign workers. Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump called for reforms of the contract-worker programs, including the H-1B program, and declared his policy would be to “Buy American, Hire American.”

On Wednesday, Jan 15, Trump’s first nominee for the job was withdrawn after a few GOP Senators said they would not vote for him in the closely divided Senate. The first nominee, restaurant CEO Anthony Puzder, was damaged by his pre-nomination support for cheap-labor immigration.


Acosta has worked in multiple legal jobs


He was appointed by Bush to the five-member National Labor Relations Board from December 2002 to August 2003. Next, he served as assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division until June 2005, and then became U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida until 2009. He then moved to become dean of Florida International University’s College of Law.

Acosta successfully prosecuted multiple high-profile cases in South Florida


According to Acosta’s resume posted at his law school;

While Dean Acosta served as U.S. Attorney, the Southern District prosecuted a number of high-profile defendants, including Jack Abramoff for fraud, Jose Padilla for terrorism, Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr. for torture, (the first torture case of its kind in the U.S.), and the Cali Cartel founders Miguel and Gilberto Rodriquez-Orejuela for the importation of 200,000 kilos of cocaine, which resulted in a $2.1 billion forfeiture. The District also targeted white collar crime, prosecuting several bank-related cases, including one against Swiss Bank UBS. The case resulted in UBS paying $780 million in fines, and for the first time in history, the bank provided the United States with the names of individuals who were using secret Swiss bank accounts to avoid U.S. taxes. Under Dean Acosta’s leadership, the District also focused on health care fraud and because the top district in the nation in health care fraud prosecution, charged more than 700 individuals responsible for more than $2 billion in fraud.

Acosta supports amnesty for illegals and a continued inflow of foreign workers


In January 2012, at an event organized by former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Hispanic Leadership Network, Acosta urged politicians to create “a pathway to legal immigration” despite strong public opposition.

He said:

They [the illegal aliens] go nowhere. As the Secretary said, they’re not meant to go anywhere. We need a solution. Several individuals here on the panel were involved in finding a solution several years ago under President [George W.] Bush, and we need someone who’s going to say, we have to enact immigration solutions. Part of that means figuring out what we do with all the individuals that are already in our nation. We need them here. They provide construction jobs. They provide agricultural jobs. We need to figure out a way to address that. We need to figure out a way to then have the pathway to further future legal immigration. If we do not take it all at once, we’re not going to solve it. You cannot solve part of it without solving the other part. You cannot address immigration without answering, what do you do with the individuals that are already in the United States? So let’s just get it done, and let’s get it done quickly.

View the video here.


Under current rules, the federal government annually provides work permits to roughly 1 million contract workers and Green Cards to roughly one million immigrants each year, just as four million young Americans join the workforce. The high level of immigration has been supported by the GOP’s business wing, including President George W. Bush, Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.


Acosta worked with pro-amnesty progressives at the American Bar Association


Acosta joined a bar association panel called the Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights & Responsibilities, which included the heads of the ACLU and of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The commission then produced a report which condemned public opposition to illegal immigration, saying:

The role of elected officials in furthering a discourse of antipathy towards immigrants, including out-of-status immigrants, often underlies these state legislative efforts, and arguably provides legitimacy to the increased hostility towards Latinos, and the marginalization of Latino communities. Apparent public support for these legislative efforts have made Latinos feel vulnerable and has also significantly impacted Latinos’ perceptions of fairness … the [2012 DACA mini-amnesty] policy does not grant any substantive right, and does not provide a long-term solution to the immigration system problems, which can only be addressed through appropriate immigration reform.

The report was titled “Latinos in the United States: Overcoming Legal Obstacles, Engaging in Civic Life.” The report cited support from several Latino radicals, including the president of the National Council of La Raza ethnic advocacy group. Acosta currently chairs the 11-member panel, which also includes the president of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a Latino advocacy group.


Acosta Supported Pro-Diversity Federal Mandates


From 2003 to 2005, he was Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, where he supported lawsuits that imposed social diversity on cohesive American communities. His wins include a court decision ending a schoolroom ban on Islamic hijabs, and an anti-discrimination case which forced a community to permit housing for imported contract workers. According to his resume posted at Harvard;

Alexander serves on the Florida Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism, on the Florida Innocence Commission and the American Bar Association’s Commission on Diversity in the Education Pipeline. He has received several professional recognitions, including the American Bar Association’s Council on Legal Education’s Legacy Award for efforts on diversity; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s Excellence in Government Award and the D.C. Hispanic Bar Association’s Hugh A. Johnson Jr. Memorial Award.

In 2016, he advocated for cops to give Miranda warnings in the home languages of immigrant suspects who don’t speak English.

He told NPR in August that:

There are many ways that this can be done, and we have the technology now so that we can have apps, we can have iPhones. And I should say, you know, this isn’t just an issue for Spanish with modern technology. You can do this for so many languages and really take the responsibility and the obligation away from the police officer to have to look through various translation cards and read in a language that they don’t speak Miranda warnings to individuals when they are arrested.

In 2011, he testified at a Senate hearing for policies that would treat Islam as if it were a religion which separates church and state, as does Christiniary and Judaism. He also defended Bush’s sympathetic outreach to Islamist political groups in the United States.



http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...artment-labor/

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

Judy, that story confirms the overflowing support for Alexander Acosta by open borders, illegal alien amnesty loving individuals and groups, whether Democrat or Republican. Acosta is beloved by those who we have fought against for years as we try to stop illegal immigration and comprehensive immigration reform and push for border security.

Yep. It's a shame, he'll soar through on confirmation. He's already been confirmed by the Senate 3 times in his career, so he'll probably be approved 100-0.

In January 2012, at an event organized by former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Hispanic Leadership Network, Acosta urged politicians to create “a pathway to legal immigration” despite strong public opposition.

He said:

They [the illegal aliens] go nowhere. As the Secretary said, they’re not meant to go anywhere. We need a solution. Several individuals here on the panel were involved in finding a solution several years ago under President [George W.] Bush, and we need someone who’s going to say, we have to enact immigration solutions. Part of that means figuring out what we do with all the individuals that are already in our nation. We need them here. They provide construction jobs. They provide agricultural jobs. We need to figure out a way to address that. We need to figure out a way to then have the pathway to further future legal immigration. If we do not take it all at once, we’re not going to solve it. You cannot solve part of it without solving the other part. You cannot address immigration without answering, what do you do with the individuals that are already in the United States? So let’s just get it done, and let’s get it done quickly.

That's all I needed to see. Who in Trump's administration keeps throwing these illegal alien amnesty supporter in front of him? Hopefully this dude isn't a buddy of Trump's.

There doesn't seem to be any daylight between this guy an Pudzer where illegal immigrant amnesty and a love for cheap foreign labor is concerned.