La Raza President and CEO Janet Murguia said it sickened her to hear Americans against illegal immigration chanting “USA! USA!” at protests around the country.
Singling out the Murrieta demonstrators during her keynote address at La Raza’s annual conference in Los Angeles on Monday, Murguia accused them of having “cloaked their hatred in patriotism” by shouting “‘USA! USA!’ again and again.”
“It made me angry,” she said. “In fact, I was outraged.”
Murguia demanded that the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants who are currently here receive amnesty and said the road to the White House for Republicans goes through the Latino community and La Raza. She also said Republicans who want to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or do not want to pass comprehensive amnesty legislation will not get Hispanic votes. And she repeatedly claimed that protesting illegal immigration was “un-American.”
“What we saw in Murrieta is not patriotism,” she asserted. “It is ugly, divisive, and yet another low in a debate I thought could not get much lower.”
Murguia did not say anything about the “Viva La Raza!” chants from pro-amnesty advocates in Murrieta. She also failed to mention that the number of illegal immigrant children who have unlawfully entered the country drastically spiked in the year after Obama enacted DACA in 2012. And a Pew Research report, based on data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, found that nearly 90% of these children are teenagers and not just “little kids,” as Murguia claimed nearly all of them were.
In addition, Texas state Senator Dan Patrick said there are 100,000 illegal immigrant gang members in Texas and somewhere between one in five and one in ten illegal immigrants are actually apprehended. But Murguia said it was “reprehensible” for Republicans to be concerned about disease and crime that these “little kids” may be bringing across the border.