Originally Posted by Jeanfromfillmore
CASA de Maryland: The Illegals’ ACORN
The illegal immigration debate has become an urgent focal point of American politics. Liberal politicians from the White House on down have vigorously advocated for illegal immigrant amnesty and lax border enforcement in a naked attempt to bolster prospective voter rolls.[1]
This controversy has been brewing for some time in Maryland, whose Hispanic population more than doubled between 2000 and 2010.[2] Under Governor Martin O’Malley’s sanctuary policies the state has become an illegal alien magnet.[3] The current cost of illegals in Maryland is estimated to be $1.7 billion per year, more than three-quarters of the state’s $2 billion structural deficit.[4]
Taxpayer ire overflowed this March with the passage of Maryland’s Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, granting in-state college tuition rates to illegals. A nonpartisan coalition of concerned Marylanders launched a petition drive to delay the measure and place it on the 2012 ballot as a referendum. They needed 55,736 signatures. They received twice that amount.
CASA de Maryland
The driving force behind the DREAM Act was CASA de Maryland, an increasingly vocal advocate for Maryland’s illegals. The group’s aggressive tactics and questionable dealings helped provoke the outrage that drove the DREAM Act petition to overwhelming victory. CASA’s defeat, however, did not deter them. They recruited longtime Democratic National Committee chief lawyer, Joseph E. Sandler, an attorney who specializes in harassing conservatives with frivolous litigation threats. They have now sued Maryland’s Election Commission to overturn the petition.5
CASA receives about 40 percent of its funding from Maryland state and local governments—almost $5 million of taxpayer dollars in 2010—and spends most of it lobbying for illegal immigrant perks and exceptions. Their recent lawsuit is a blatant attempt to derail the democratic process itself. So it is a fair question to ask: what is CASA de Maryland?
CASA de Maryland was founded by a young activist named Bette “Rainbow” Hoover. CASA’s name is a metaphor for the organization’s duplicitous nature. CASA means “house” or “home” in Spanish; however, “CASA” is actually an acronym for Central American Solidarity Association. It is more in keeping with the designs and philosophies of other Central American solidarity organizations formed at the time, like the communist-founded6 Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).
It was incorporated on February 28, 1985, but Hoover said it actually began operating in 1983,7 based out of Takoma Park Presbyterian Church in Takoma Park, Maryland. From its modest beginnings, CASA has grown into a multi-million dollar operation, with influence reaching to the Obama White House. It is headquartered in the newly-renovated (with $10 million in taxpayer dollars), 18,000 square foot, 28-room, Langley Park Mansion, right up the street from Takoma Park. It boasts a community center and five day-labor centers spread over a 35-mile radius from the Washington, D.C. metro area to Baltimore. Recently, CASA created a political-action arm, “CASA in Action,” based at Takoma Park Presbyterian Church, bringing CASA full circle back to where it all began.
Hoover described CASA’s early days: “We just had to do something. People were coming here who really needed help…” She said that virtually all were illegals fleeing El Salvador’s civil war. Hoover added that they decided early on to help all comers, including communist guerillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)8.
The Sanctuary Movement
Most Central Americans came to America via the Sanctuary movement.9 What began informally on the Southwest border in the early 1980s grew into a nationwide network of “underground railways” terminating in hundreds of “sanctuary” terminals before the end of the decade. One source identified 399 discreet sites.10 Another claimed there were as many as 3,000.11 In 1985, the same year as CASA’s founding, Takoma Park became one of the first “Sanctuary” cities.12 Takoma Park Presbyterian Church was DC’s Underground Railroad terminus (there were ultimately six in Maryland),13 and remains an official Sanctuary Church.14
As it grew, the movement formed two main camps, the Tucson Ecumenical Council (TEC) and the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America (CRTF), based out of Chicago, Illinois. The two groups clashed on movement goals. TEC wanted to assist whoever needed help. The CRTF was a nominally Catholic organization promoting Liberation Theology—the Catholics’ own version of Marxism, and was formed “with the explicit objective of challenging U.S. foreign policy.”15
The CRTF even went so far as to demand an ideological litmus test for refugees. At its height, the movement vetted prospective refugees for their ideological pedigree through the Catholic networks in Mexico and Central America, before they even reached the border.16
How did this happen? Much of Chicago’s Catholic Church had already been captured by the Left. Radical organizer Saul Alinsky collaborated with local Catholics who helped him found his Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF).17 The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, today’s funding arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, (and a funder of CASA) was started in 1969 specifically to provide adequate funding for Alinsky’s IAF.18
Illegal Alien Advocacy
The 1980s flood of illegal aliens escaping instability in Central America was the impetus for CASA’s creation. It has since morphed into a multi-million dollar institution whose primary mission is illegal alien advocacy. Following is a partial list of its activities:
1. Day labor centers—a hub for illegal aliens
2. Instruction in avoiding police/immigration officials
3. What to do if detained by police/immigration officials
4. English as a second language
5. Counseling on available government benefits
6. Agitating for driver’s licenses for illegals
7. Agitating for bi-lingual education
8. Agitating for social services, like in-state tuition for illegals (i.e. the DREAM Act)
9. Undermining security and border laws
10. Interfering with law enforcement efforts against illegals.
On the website Somos Baltimore Latino CASA advertises membership with a drawing depicting the CASA membership ID card, (translated into English via Google with corrections):
BECOME A MEMBER OF HOUSE [CASA] - The organization CASA de Maryland is re-launching the campaign “BECOME A MEMBER OF [CASA]“ in order to register more Latinos brothers. To date, CASA [has] more than 10,000 members.
Membership allows us to achieve many legal and civil rights [victories], the most recent is that of Maryland’s Dream Act favoring undocumented students. CASA is currently working alongside other organizations to promote immigration reform.
CASA membership gives you access to services as well as take classes in English, computer, citizenship, health care, legal advice and participation in activities and programs of CASA.
State offices are allowing Illegal immigrants to use this card to register for welfare benefits, in violation of state and federal law. More about this later.
CASA collaborated with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) through its “Detention Watch National Immigration Project” on a brochure explaining how illegals can protect themselves during immigration raids and arrest. This brochure is readily available at CASA locations. Text on the cover says:
Some people who are not United States citizens have been arrested or detained by the U.S. government. Learn how to protect yourself if this happens to you.
It essentially tells you how to evade the law, or if caught, minimize the impact and avoid deportation.
It explains what you should do if you are arrested, questioned by police, accused of a crime, if immigration officers come to your home or workplace, or if you are stopped by police on the street. In each case it is either “call your lawyer” or “don’t say anything” and suggests you carry cards that say things like, “I want to speak to my lawyer.” If you don’t have a lawyer, it says, get one. It suggests you post your lawyer’s phone number in a handy place and keep a copy with you. It instructs you to develop an “action plan” in case of a workplace raid. All of the pictures depict Hispanic-looking people. What do you do if you are Somali?
The DREAM Act
During the petition drive to stop Maryland’s DREAM Act, CASA revealed its deep contempt for American democratic processes. CASA and other local leftist activists—paid and unpaid—shadowed and confronted petitioners in what can only be characterized as a coordinated, quasi-military campaign of threats, interference and direct confrontation. Behavior reported by petitioners included:19
• Screaming racist and obscene epithets in their faces
• Blocking interested citizens from approaching petition tables
• Pleading with people not to sign
• Passing out misleading “Think Before You Ink” flyers
• Field Works paid operatives shadowing petition locations and coordinating by phone
• Calling police
• One petitioner even reported being spat at
In other cases, CASA and other activists threatened businesses that allowed petitioners to gather signatures on their property. Business owners, fearing a backlash, often caved and asked petitioners to leave.
They were aided and abetted in this campaign by unidentified sources within Maryland government, for when CASA activists called police, they would immediately appear, and despite their legal rights, petitioners were sometimes ordered by police to leave.20
The End Game
CASA’s true goal is blanket amnesty. Democrats are pinning their future on the illegal vote. Eliseo Medina21 is the honorary Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and International Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In 2008, he spoke at a “Take Back America” conference sponsored by the radical leftist Campaign for America’s Future. He said:
…If we reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have …even two out of three, if we get 8 million new voters… we will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.
The actual number of illegals in the U.S. is more likely between 20 and 30 million,22 hence the Democrats’ blind obsession with servicing illegals.
Eliseo Medina was the guest of honor last December at an event heralding CASA’s 25 year anniversary:
“I’ve started to lobby Gustavo,” Medina says. “Are you just a CASA of Maryland? How about a CASA of the East? A CASA of the United States?”23
CASA de Maryland has published a plan called the “New Americans Initiative.”24 Through this plan they hope to naturalize the approximately 270,000 legal permanent residents in the area. CASA wants them to: “…take the final and critical step of political integration by naturalizing and becoming citizens.”
President Obama’s most recent vote-buying scam is to promote mortgage subsidies to illegals through the National Council of La Raza. Why NCLR? Obama’s Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Cecilia Muñoz, is a former NCLR Vice President. She also served on the Board of CASA de Maryland:
The new [Spanish-language] campaign warns Hispanics [both legal and illegal] that time is running out to get up to $50,000 from Uncle Sam to pay their mortgage, past due charges, taxes, insurance and even legal fees associated with their home.25
It bears repeating that this kind of encouragement is exactly what caused the subprime mortgage meltdown:
In 2008 the [Department of Housing and Urban Development] revealed that some 5 million fraudulent or defaulted home mortgages were in the hands of illegal immigrants, who obtained the loans from banks that were pressured by the government to offer them.26
Why Maryland?
CASA de Maryland has enormous influence in state politics. But it also has disproportionate influence at the White House. Two former CASA Board members, the current Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Thomas Perez, and the aforementioned Cecilia Muñoz, have powerful positions within the Obama administration and have used their positions to assist CASA.
Maryland is a secure base of operations for field-testing a new kind of community organization. In discussing his New Americans Initiative, CASA Director Gustavo Torres recently said:
“My goal is to build 200,000 members in the next five years”… [And to someday] “build a powerful … movement of immigrants and other minorities including the African American community to fight for justice—and they decide what justice means.” (Emphasis added.)27
CASA wants to become the illegal immigrants’ ACORN. And Torres has a good teacher: ACORN founder Wade Rathke, with whom he has become fast friends.
Gustavo Torres
Gustavo Torres’ career has enjoyed a meteoric rise since his arrival in the U.S. in 1991. Starting as a CASA organizer that year, he became Director in 1994. He was an awardee of Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World in 2001 and was one of 15 Washingtonians of the Year in 2002. Under his leadership, CASA has also received the Institute for Policy Studies’ Letelier-Moffitt award (2003), National Council of La Raza’s Affiliate of the Year award (2004), the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund Community Service award (2006) and others.
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