Attorney General
Backers Say Lawyer’s Immigration Work Cost Him Civil Rights Post
Posted Mar 19, 2009 6:11 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Supporters are charging that a Los Angeles lawyer’s controversial litigation work on immigration issues cost him a job as chief of the Justice Department's civil rights division.
President Obama chose Maryland labor secretary Thomas Perez for the post, disappointing supporters of Thomas Saenz, counsel to the mayor of Los Angeles.
Saenz is the former vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles, the Daily Journal reports (sub. req.). His lawsuits overturned local ordinances banning day laborers from city streets and a California referendum cutting services to undocumented aliens.
Conservatives have criticized Saenz’s work, according to the Daily Journal and the Los Angeles Times. An editorial in Investor's Business Daily called him "a man who has dedicated his life to promoting illegal immigrant 'rights.' "
Law professor Maria Blanco of UC Berkeley told the Daily Journal that she has learned the White House had offered the position to Saenz but withdrew it because of expected opposition by anti-immigrant groups. Blanco was a member of the presidential transition team for Barack Obama and is executive director of UC Berkeley’s Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity.
The National Council of La Raza has issued a statement expressing "profound disappointment" that Saenz didn’t get the job.
Asked for comment, a White House spokeswoman told the Daily Journal, “Tom Saenz is an outstanding attorney who would be on anyone's short list for an important civil rights job, and remains in consideration for an administration post.”
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Comments
J.D.
Mar 19, 2009 8:12 AM CST
When you advocate lawlessness and anarchy, don’t be surprised if you get the boot.
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JR
Mar 19, 2009 9:11 AM CST
That’s why the American people gave the Republicans “the boot” in the last election.
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J.D.
Mar 19, 2009 11:07 AM CST
As far as immigration goes, it’s the House Republicans and some House Democrats who are on the side of the rule of law. It’s true that McCain’s anarchistic immigration policies sunk him. Support for mass amnesty also hurt Bush.
But most of the new House Democrats are opposed to amnesty, so I don’t think La Raza is going to be able to advance their subversive agenda any time soon.
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PaysAttention
Mar 19, 2009 11:20 AM CST
Lawlessness and anarchy? Are you serious? Where did you go to law school, “J.D.?” Saenz defeated Prop 187 using the Supremacy Clause - only fed govt can legislate re immigration. He defeated anti-loitering (anti-day-laborer) ordinance on the grounds of the First Amendment. If using the constitution to defend individuals’ rights cost one of the nation’s preeminent civil rights litigators his nomination, it doesn’t say much for President Obama’s interest in restoring the civil rights division. A short-sighted move on the part of the administration.
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JR
Mar 19, 2009 11:56 AM CST
Post no. 3. You misunderstood my comment. For the simple minded, I will clarify. The people advocating lawlessness and anarchy were the Republicans who ran roughshod over the Constitution and the laws of the land in a chimercial ” war on terror.” The immigration rights lawyers stood up for law and order.
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J.D.
Mar 19, 2009 12:14 PM CST
PaysAttention to this: States can ABSOLUTELY legislate on immigration; just last year all 50 state legislatures introduced over 1500 immigration-related bills. They just can’t naturalize or deport on their own. You need to pay closer attention in class. As for the popular Prop. 187, it was aimed at discouraging illegal immigration in California by reducing non-mandated benefits for illegal aliens—something California counties are currently doing on their own. Check the news. But Saenz took the side of the lawbreakers and worked against the overwhelming majority of Californians who supported the proposition.
As for the day laborers, their biggest supporters admit that day laborers are overwhelmingly in the country illegally. So why would Saenz want to help employers violate federal law by illegally employing illegal aliens? It’s not a simple matter of “free speech.” Day laborers are using commercial speech which, if aimed at an illegal end as it is here, can be highly regulated by the government. So again, Saenz is on the side of lawlessness.
Bottom line: Saenz, La Raza, AILA, MALDEF and others do not want any immigration laws enforced. That makes them near-anarchist groups in my opinion. The racial separatist Hispanic Caucus is going to be sorely disappointed when no amnesty happens this year or next year.
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csc
Mar 19, 2009 2:31 PM CST
It is clear that J.D. is the racial separatist, anarchist. You must have some idea how extremist you come across – about everything.
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J.D.
Mar 19, 2009 3:46 PM CST
^ You’re going to need to be a little more specific.
Name-calling doesn’t really fly in court.
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B. McLeod
Mar 19, 2009 8:06 PM CST
Truly, J.D. has posted many, many comments to the effect that it is undesirable to have government involvement in one’s life, that government cannot be trusted, and that government involvement in any situation always makes it worse. I can see why other posters would identify these as anarchist positions. However, when it comes to persons in the country illegally, J.D. has consistently advocated government involvement in their lives, specifically to achieve their removal. This would not be an anarchist position. Also, I think this is one of J.D.‘s less extreme areas of comment (although he has a fixation concerning it). To me, it is an unremarkable postulate that some unit(s) of government should be enforcing the laws, to remove people who are in the country illegally. This is actually among the few points upon which I agree with J.D. That said, I also agree with those who maintain that it needs to be done constitutionally, and from this, it follows that a lawyer who has only litigated to assure that it is done constitutionally should not be penalized.
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Key
Mar 22, 2009 10:40 PM CST
Saenz being given the boot made my day. This creep has spent his entire adult life trying to transfer power from American citizens to Latin Americans in California. That’s been his guiding principle. Whatever the means - our legal system, political machinations, social agitation, the encouragement of lawbreaking, discouragement of law enforcement, etc - his AIM is to get more power for his own ethnic group. I’m related by marriage to another staunchly pro-Hispanic activist lawyer in Los Angeles who’s also worked with MALDEF, and boy, you should hear some of these people talk when they’re in private. Not quite how they’d like to be perceived publically! It’s been a sad lesson for me.
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