Perhaps it’s time to take the word “American” out of ACLU. The once-famed American Civil Liberties Union is all-in on defending illegal aliens, even to the point where it has a formerly “undocumented” top official on the staff whose sole job is to combat efforts to enforce US immigration laws.
The aggressiveness on this issue by an organization ostensibly devoted to protecting the individual rights of American citizens is startling. On May 8, ACLU chapters in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, California’s San Diego and Imperial Counties, Colorado, Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas issued a travel advisory for Oklahoma after the state passed a new law making it a crime for an illegal alien to enter its domain. The law also criminalizes re-entering the state for those who have been ordered out of the US.
The triumph of pure politics over legal standing is evident from the organization’s verbal assault against Oklahoma.
A Threat to the Undocumented?
“[House Bill] 4156 is an attack on immigrants everywhere. By taking on unconstitutional immigration enforcement power, the government in Oklahoma is threatening immigrants who have lived and worked in their communities for decades,” ACLU of New Mexico Border and Immigration Policy Advocate Leonardo Castaneda said. “This is also a threat to New Mexicans who are undocumented, have mixed-status families or are simply a target for racist profiling by overeager and undertrained local law enforcement officers.”
The travel advisory clearly states that the ACLU is dedicated to backing the “civil liberties” of illegal aliens, warning that such laws “do nothing to welcome people seeking safety and refuge.” One day later, on May 9, the organization was at it again, filing suit against Iowa for passing a law similar to the Oklahoma measure. It made no attempt to hide its blatantly partisan leanings in linking up with pro-illegal alien activist groups.
“The American Immigration Council, American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Iowa filed the suit on behalf of Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice. The groups are requesting an injunction before the law takes effect July 1,” The Des Moines Register reported.
An Early Warning Ignored
There’s no mystery behind how the ACLU completely lost its way; an avalanche of progressive money poured into the organization’s coffers in response to the election of President Donald Trump in 2016. “Online donations had been in the $3 million to $5 million annual range before the coming of Trump. With him in office, that number has risen to $120 million,” Liberty Nation noted in 2018.
Then there are the omnipresent loaded greenbacks of notorious globalist billionaire George Soros. In 2014, Soros gave the ACLU a whopping $50 million in one “grant” for the organization to work to end “mass incarceration” in the US.
Interestingly, a co-founder of the ACLU warned against the dangers of powerful moneyed philanthropists over a century ago. When oil baron John D. Rockefeller lobbied Congress for a federal charter to establish a “general-purpose private charitable foundation” in the first two decades of the 20th century, he faced strong opposition from those who feared the undue influence that would inevitably be a part of such “donations.”
“Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes, a co-founder of the ACLU and the NAACP, testified that he presumed Rockefeller had good motives, but ‘it seems to me this foundation, the very character, must be repugnant to the whole idea of a democratic society,’” leftist publication Mother Jones wrote.
The political left has long abandoned any such concerns. That is how an American Civil Liberties Union became virulently committed to supporting foreigners illegally residing in the nation over US citizens.
ACLU Immigration Director Has Curious Ties
Maribel Hernandez Rivera is the “Director of Policy and Government Affairs, Border and Immigration” for the ACLU. Before that, she served as Deputy National Political Director for the organization. Rivera regularly touts her “undocumented childhood” experience as fundamental to her current job duties.
“I came to the United States from Mexico in 1993, when I was 13, not speaking a word of English,” Rivera wrote in a 2023 article for Ms. magazine. “For many years, I lived in the country without permission to be here. I often wondered what would happen if I were to be deported.” What does this have to do with American civil liberties? Nothing. The ACLU openly states that Rivera’s entire purpose is “to fight for people who are seeking asylum, for families to remain united, for families like mine.”
While she frequently touts her impoverished “undocumented” upbringing, Rivera has been traveling in quite lofty circles for well over a decade. She was awarded a 2009 PD Soros fellowship. Paul Soros, the late brother of George, established the program along with his wife, Daisy. Rivera’s resume since then touches an astonishing number of elitist bases. Harvard, Goldman Sachs, the Clinton Foundation, and the United Nations are just a few of the names that jump out.
Many believe the 2024 model of the ACLU does not remotely serve the civil interests of the American people. That says little for the integrity of a once-respected organization, but, hey, the financial bottom line has never been better.
