Thread: Trump Nominates Son of Cuban Immigrants ( La Raza, MALDEF, LULAC Endorse)

Trump Nominates son of Cuban Immigrants (La Raza, MALDEF, LULAC endorse)


Israel Ortega

February 17, 2017

A day after Andrew Puzder withdrew his name for consideration for Labor Secretary, President Donald J. Trump nominated Alexander Acosta, the dean at the Florida International University School of Law, as his replacement. If confirmed, Acosta would be the 13th Hispanic, of either party, to serve in the White House cabinet.


Acosta’s appointment would also ensure that there would be a Latino in the White House, a streak that goes back to 1988 when president George H. W. Bush, a Republican, nominated Lauro F. Cavazos for Education Secretary.


The nomination will now head to the U.S. Senate, where it will await a vote from the Health Education and Labor (HELP) committee. If the committee approves, the nomination would head to a full Senate floor vote. Acosta has been previously confirmed by the Senate three times for a number of positions including serving as a member of the National Labor Relations Board, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

ACOSTA HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY CONFIRMED BY THE SENATE THREE TIMES FOR A NUMBER OF POSITIONS

While it’s expected that Acosta will be confirmed with Republicans controlling the U.S. Senate, a number of Democrats are likely to oppose the nomination, largely on ideological and philosophical grounds, as they face growing pressure from the extreme left to oppose President Trump every step of the way.


To be sure, the president’s pick also casts the issue of immigration front and center. As the son of Cuban immigrants, Acosta has expressed support for immigration in the past, including the need to enact comprehensive immigration reform.


In remarks to the Hispanic Leadership Network, a conservative Hispanic organization that has since ceased operation, Acosta told the group: “If there is one thing that I would do is put a clock, a timeline for comprehensive immigration reform…Part of that means figuring out what to do with all of the people that are here.” Acosta goes on to say, “we also need a pathway for future legal immigration…Let’s get it done, and let’s get it done quickly.”


Shortly after the announcement was made, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), a nonpartisan organization committed to seeing greater participation of Latinos in the American political process, issued a statement in support of the nomination. Arturo Vargas, the group’s executive director, said in part: “If confirmed, Acosta would ensure there is a Latino voice at the table when President Donald Trump convenes his senior advisors in the Cabinet Room to make decisions on behalf of the country.”

“IF CONFIRMED, ACOSTA WOULD ENSURE THERE IS A LATINO VOICE AT THE TABLE WHEN PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP CONVENES HIS SENIOR ADVISORS IN THE CABINET ROOM TO MAKE DECISIONS ON BEHALF OF THE COUNTRY.”

Meanwhile Brent Wilkes, executive director for the League for United Latino American Citizens (LULAC), the largest and oldest Latino civil rights organization in the country said of the nomination to Opportunity Lives, “This is a good choice and it bodes well.”


Wilkes was particularly effusive in Acosta’s support for comprehensive immigration reform saying: “Acosta values immigrants and wants to see hard working immigrants treated fairly.”


Republicans on Capitol Hill have been expressing their support for the president’s pick including the junior senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, who also hails from south Florida. In a statement, the former presidential candidate said: “I know Alex Acosta well, and he is a phenomenal choice to lead the Department of Labor.”

“ACOSTA VALUES IMMIGRANTS AND WANTS TO SEE HARD WORKING IMMIGRANTS TREATED FAIRLY.”

Among one of the goals Acosta would be able to accomplish, if confirmed, is to reverse the Obama administration overtime rule that raised the threshold extending overtime pay to eligible employees. Last year, a Nicaraguan immigrant testified before the Senate committee on small business and entrepreneurship arguing that it raises the cost of doing business and stifles the ability for employees to rise through the ranks.


In remarks making the announcement, President Trump said that Acosta has “had a tremendous career” and will be a “tremendous secretary of labor.”


http://opportunitylives.com/trump-no...bor-secretary/

Here is a brief description of Mr. Acosta provided during his time with President George W. Bush. He received recognition from MALDEF.





Assistant Attorney General R. Alexander Acosta


R. Alexander Acosta was selected by President Bush to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice on August 22, 2003. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights statutes, including those statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs.


Prior to his service as Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Acosta served as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB"), an independent federal agency responsible for administering and interpreting the National Labor Relations Act, the principal private-sector national statute regulating labor relations. Mr. Acosta has also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division.


A native of Miami, Florida, Mr. Acosta earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard College and his law degree from the Harvard Law School. After graduation, he served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and then worked at the Washington office of the Kirkland and Ellis law firm, where he specialized in employment and labor issues.


Mr. Acosta is the first Hispanic to serve as an Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. He is the 2003 recipient of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund's Excellence in Government Service Award and the DC Hispanic Bar Association's Hugh A. Johnson, Jr. Memorial Award. He has also taught several classes on employment law, disability-based discrimination law, and civil rights law at the George Mason School of Law.


Return to this article at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/racosta-bio.html

A Tale of Two Nominees


by Jim Boulet Jr. July 8, 2003


Why do Estrada opponents adore Acosta? Two Hispanic men of achievement have been suggested for high office by the Bush administration. You have undoubtedly heard of Miguel Estrada, a Bush judicial nominee who is the victim of a filibuster by Senate Democrats. You may soon hear of R. Alexander Acosta, whose prospective nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights has provoked praise from the same foes of official English who oppose Estrada.


The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), while tepid regarding the Estrada nomination, is red hot in its support for Acosta because:


During his tenure at DOJ, Mr. Acosta played a pivotal role in the Limited-English-Proficient (LEP) Guidance enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires recipients of federal financial assistance to provide language assistance to LEP persons.


The Justice Department’s own press release on Acosta also refers to an award to Acosta from the “Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund.”


The group’s actual name, according to the Associated Press is the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). MALDEF is strongly opposed to the Estrada nomination.


MALDEF gave Acosta its “Excellence in Government Service Award” this year “for his work on language minority issues, including initiatives on language access to government-funded services” (emphasis added).
The language “initiatives” commended by MALDEF are all tied to Clinton Executive Order 13166. E.O. 13166 requires all recipients of federal funds to function in Spanish, or any other language in the world, upon demand. So-called “Hispanic-rights groups” see nothing wrong with making Spanish coequal with English in the United States, even if the people those groups claim to represent are busy learning English.


Obviously, winning an endorsement from an anti-English group like the NCLR as well as an award from MALDEF does not constitute infallible proof that Acosta is himself anti-English.


Friends of mine assure me that Acosta was personally opposed to many of the anti-English policies he acted to strengthen. Or they say that Acosta was merely doing the bidding of his superiors. All of those things could well be true. And therein lies the problem.


As a rule, when a Democratic president makes a “historic first” nomination, his people ensure the nominee is firmly one of them ideologically. When Republican presidents pick people as the “first woman this” or “first Hispanic that,” the nominee’s ideology seems an afterthought at best. Accordingly, liberals get Janet Reno while conservatives get Sandra Day O’Connor. And the records of “stealth conservatives” like David Souter are not encouraging.


If MALDEF and NCLR are proven right about Acosta — and their track record says they will be — he is the wrong choice on both political and policy grounds.


To appoint a supporter of E.O. 13166 like Acosta as the chief law-enforcement officer for Clinton’s misguided language policy will ensure that all the expensive fallout from Clinton’s linguistic pandering lands at the doorstep of President George W. Bush. This is dreadful politics.
E.O. 13166 is also simply awful policy. It says to every immigrant: “don’t bother to learn English. We’ll tell you everything you need to know.” That is not the American way that, for over 200 years, turned millions of immigrants into proud, productive American citizens.


If the Bush administration is determined to name the first Hispanic to the post of assistant attorney general for civil rights, there are undoubtedly plenty of distinguished Hispanic lawyers who agree with Linda Chavez’s thinking about E.O. 13166. Such a nominee would ensure a sound language policy for the Bush administration.


As Morton Blackwell has taught generations of conservatives, “sound doctrine is sound politics.” He’s right. — Jim Boulet Jr. is executive director of English First.


http://www.nationalreview.com/article/207427/tale-two-nominees-jim-...

Related:

https://www.alipac.us/f8/warning-tru...maldef-343732/

Immigration Hawks Sweat Trump Labor Pick


FIU President Alexander Acosta advocated for easier migration, amnesty


Brendan Kirby

February 16, 2017


Alexander Acosta, President Donald Trump’s replacement choice to run the Department of Labor, advocated for easier immigration and amnesty for people who previously had come to the United States illegally.


Acosta, who served on the National Labor Relations Board in the George W. Bush administration, expressed his views at a 2012 forum sponsored by the Hispanic Leadership Network Conference. He called for “comprehensive immigration solutions” and lamented the failure of previous legislative efforts.

"We need them here. They provide construction jobs. They provide agricultural jobs. We need to figure out a way to address that.”

“Part of that means figuring out what we do with all the individuals that are already in our nation,” he said. “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 a pathway to further, future legal immigration. And if we don’t take it all at once, we’re not going to solve it. Because you can’t solve part of it without solving the other part.”


Immigration hawks expressed concern over those sentiments.
“He essentially advocates for amnesty for the basis for immigration reform,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform. “That kind of sounds like open borders.”

Although the labor secretary is not as intimately involved in immigration enforcement as other Cabinet-level officials, experts say the Labor Department does conduct workplace inspections and help set overall labor policies.

William Gheen, founder of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said the views Acosta expressed at the 2012 forum are disturbing.


“It’s very clear that this guy is from the amnesty side of the aisle,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate that someone like that would ever be considered for any position in the Trump administration.”


Gheen also expressed concern that Acosta has been backed in the past by the National Council of La Raza. The group, in 2003 testimony supporting Acosta’s bid to be an assistant attorney general, called him a “bridge-builder, not only with the Latino community but with other ethnic and racial groups.”


Acosta, who currently serves as dean of Florida International University’s law school, would add diversity to the administration. The son of Cuban immigrants, he is the first Hispanic named to the Cabinet.

Trump mentioned Acosta briefly during a combative news conference dominated by dueling with reporters pushing him on allegations that his presidential campaign was in constant contact with Russian officials.
“He will be a tremendous secretary of labor,” Trump said.


Rep. Bradley Bryne (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, praised the selection.


“Alex Acosta has a clear record of protecting American workers and upholding the law,” Byrne said in a statement. “From his time on the National Labor Relations Board to his service as a U.S. attorney, he has the background and experience necessary to excel as secretary of labor.”



Acosta also drew praise from the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.


“We are thrilled to work with Acosta on a host of economic and labor issues which directly affect our members and the Hispanic community as a whole,” the group’s president, Javier Palomarez, said in a statement.


After his stint on the National Labor Relations Board, Acosta became the first Hispanic to serve as an an assistant attorney general. After that, he became the U.S. attorney in Miami, where he oversaw prosecutions of lobbyist Jack Abramoff on fraud charges and terrorism suspect Jose Padilla.


Other high-profile cases included founders of the Cali drug cartel and the son of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr. was convicted of leading a campaign of torture against his father’s political enemies.


But it is Acosta’s immigration comments that are likely to cause the most consternation among conservatives. Immigration hawks expressed similar concerns about Trump’s first choice to run the Labor Department, Andrew Puzder, who withdrew his nameWednesday amid mounting opposition over personal issues.


During the 2012 forum, Acosta told the story of a Haitian woman who paid smugglers to come into the country and endured repeated rapes during the journey.


Puzder Becomes First Cabinet-Appointee CasualtyFast food exec withdraws nomination to head Labor Dept. in face of rising opposition

"The cost of illegal immigration is not simply exclusion, but it's the abuse of those individuals that are looking to our nation as beacons of freedom, and so we need to take it on, we need to figure out a way to address illegal immigration and give everyone a pathway to get here legally, in a transparent way, and in a fair way," he said.


Mehlman, the FAIR spokesman, said Acosta seems to view immigration through the same lens as Puzder.


"He seems to also advocate for an unlimited, or virtually unlimited, flow of immigrant labor," he said.



http://www.lifezette.com/polizette/i...mp-labor-pick/

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


by NEIL MUNRO

February 16, 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/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2004

WWW.USDOJ.GOV



JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REACHES SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT WITH OKLAHOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT IN MUSLIM STUDENT HEADSCARF CASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice today announced the settlement of a lawsuit alleging that the Muskogee, Oklahoma Public School District had violated the constitutional rights of a sixth-grade Muslim girl when it barred her from wearing a Muslim headscarf, or hijab. Under the consent agreement signed by the parties, the school district will allow the girl to wear the headscarf and will revise its student dress code policy to accommodate exceptions for bona fide religious reasons.


“This settlement reaffirms the principle that public schools cannot require students to check their faith at the school house door,” said R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate discrimination against Muslims or any other religious group. As the President and the Attorney General have made clear repeatedly, such intolerance is un-American, and is morally despicable.”


The Justice Department intervened in this case in March 2004, after an investigation revealed that the school district prohibited the student, Nashala Hearn, from wearing her hijab at Benjamin Franklin Science Academy, a public middle school in Muskogee. The investigation further uncovered that while Hearn was prohibited from wearing her hijab, the school district allowed certain other students to wear head coverings for non-religious purposes. During the 2003-04 school year, the school district twice suspended Nashala Hearn for wearing the hijab. Later, she was permitted her to wear the hijab pending the outcome of the suit.


The parties today signed a proposed consent decree, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, resolving the lawsuit. Under the six-year agreement, which remains subject to court approval, the school district will amend its dress code to permit head coverings for bona fide religious reasons and will allow Hearn to wear her hijab while attending the Muskogee Public Schools. The district will also implement a training program for all teachers and administrators regarding the amended dress code, publicize the revised dress code policy to students and parents and certify its compliance with the terms of the order for a four-year period.
The Civil Rights Division is involved in a number of ongoing religious liberty cases in schools and many other contexts.

More information about these cases may be found at www.usdoj.gov/crt/religdisc/religdisc.html.
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04-343

R. Alexander Acosta


Chair of the ABA Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights & Responsibilities and Dean, College of Law, at Florida International University.


Acosta focused his remarks on education, an issue that “undergirds many other issues” in the Latino community, he said. Florida International University College of Law graduates the highest percentage of Latinos of any ranked law school in the country, and is housed at a university that is almost 80 percent Latino, Acosta noted. Latino law students face many challenges, including a lack of role models, a lack of sophistication about the educational system, and a lack of knowledge about how to prepare for law school.


Cultural factors can influence Latino students as well, Acosta said. The centrality of family to many Latinos sometimes causes students or recent graduates to curtail career opportunities. Often students must drop out or suspend their studies in order to work to support the family, Acosta said. In addition, recent graduates sometimes hesitate to accept excellent jobs or clerkships if they require them to leave their family’s geographic area. The percentage of Latino law grads is actually declining, Acosta noted. “When you’re not advancing as a group, you’re retrogressing,” he said, which means “we need to start thinking about these issues.”


Acosta also spoke about challenges facing Latino students at the secondary school level. Latinos, who make up about 25 percent of public school students nationwide, are over-represented in the public school system relative to their numbers in the population, he said. Latino dropout rates are very high. In South Florida, historically, for example, 21 percent of all high school students—many of them Latino—drop out after ninth grade. Only 50 percent of entering freshmen end up graduating from public high school. Some join gangs, but Acosta said, prosecuting gang members is not the answer. For every two gang members that are convicted “you get four more” because so many young people are out of school. But, Acosta said, “the school to prison pipeline is just part of the problem...If you don’t solve the educational problem you are going to have all sorts of problems in terms of socioeconomic status...housing, and other issues. These are fundamental problems that need to be solved because they lead to all the secondary issues we’re talking about,” Acosta said.


From the ABA Spring 2016


http://www.americanbarfoundation.org/uploads/cms/documents/rl_sprin...