The below column was written for and originally posted [ January 2, 2007 ] on Dick Pettys’ Insider Advantage Georgia , a subscription Website. Reposted here with permission. I have added several hyperlinks to educate the reader.

MALDEF position on local enforcement of immigration laws on shaky ground in AJC

By D.A. King

In a December 29 guest column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, acting Southeast regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund [MALDEF], Isaiah D. Delemar, threatens costly legal action if Cherokee County does not abandon its recently passed ordinance aimed at preventing landlords there from renting to “unauthorized immigrants”.

He goes on to argue that the federal government has sole jurisdiction and authority on immigration law enforcement – in contradiction of facts included in a publication distributed by his own organization.

It appears that Delemar has “unremebered” the first paragraph of the Introduction in a MALDEF co-sponsored publication entitled State and Local Police Enforcement of Federal Immigration laws: A Tool Kit for Advocates : “In 2003 the administration overturned a Department of Justice legal opinion and stated that the police have the inherent authority to enforce all federal immigration laws…”

The warning comes in the fifty-three page March 2006 online “how to” publication aimed at instructing pro-illegal immigration activists on defeating any local efforts at enforcement of immigration laws.

Absent the concern of an opposing view or equal time in the AJC – which Chaired the lavish 2004 annual MALDEF fundraiser gala in Atlanta – Delemar was able to bypass some important facts.

Unmentioned in Delemar’s AJC column: Existing law makes it a felony to shelter, assist, employ, harbor, transport or encourage an illegal alien to remain in the United States. Penalties are increased for doing so for commercial profit [8USC, 1324].

Recognized by many to be one of the most aggressive proponents of illegal immigration and bilingualism in the nation, the far left MALDEF shamelessly presents itself as a “civil rights organization”. The constant and relentless talking point from Delemar & Co. is that nothing less than a repeat of the legalization and a path to citizenship of the “one time” amnesty of 1986 is the solution to the crisis on which it thrives.

The code for this amnesty-again is “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”.

Illegal immigration is a very lucrative enterprise. With net assets of nearly $12 million, funded in large part from tax deductible donations from the same corporations benefiting from the taxpayer subsidized black market labor and markets it enables, MALDEF does indeed have the financial ability and manpower to intimidate local governments into ignoring their inherent authority to enforce immigration laws.

What it lacks is a history of candor or consistency with the truth.

Using the tool that has consistently proven to be the most effective in its fight against the enforcement of American immigration laws MALDEF and Delemar have again conjured up the mindless concept that those laws – and their equal application – would involve “discrimination” and “racial profiling”.

One must note that Mexico does not suffer what MALDEF labels as an “anti-immigrant” debate – as it uses its military to secure its borders, enthusiastically enforces its immigration and employment laws and deports more people annually than does the United States…mostly Latinos from Central America.

Following one of the far too infrequent federal efforts at enforcement in Stillmore Georgia late last year, Delamar’s predecessor, Tisha Tallman, joined other local advocates for illegals – including soon – to – be former state Senator Sam Zamarripa and Mexican citizen Teodoro Maus – in leading self -announced illegals in an Atlanta “March for Dignity”… and a demand to an end for any further enforcement of American immigration laws.

Zamarripa sits on the Board of Directors of MALDEF; Maus is the former Atlanta Mexican Consul General.

For those who study illegal immigration, it is sadly comical to watch as what can only be labeled as the open borders lobby instructs its advocates on how to circumvent and combat existing authority and law while being allowed to write misleading newspaper columns declaring that the authority it opposes does not exist.

Readers and observers of future MALDEF presentations would do well to keep in mind the true motivation, goals and methods of this well-paid gang of leftists, and to remember this: By definition, real immigrants do not require legalization or a path to citizenship.

They are on a path to citizenship and already proudly enjoy the rights and privileges of all who join the American family according to American laws.

King writes a column in the Marietta Daily Journal and is president of the non-profit Dustin Inman Society, a Marietta-based coalition dedicated to educating the Georgia public on the consequences of illegal immigration. www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org