Mexican consulate deal dogs Huckabee campaign

[Update: (11/1/07) Legality of Huckabee's Mexican consulate deal questioned Critics say Arkansas citizens, businesses financed office to draw illegal workers]
Critics charge he established 'magnet' for illegals financed by citizens, U.S. businesses by Jerome R. Corsi: A lingering controversy over the role former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee played in establishing a Mexican consulate office in Little Rock financed by taxpayers and local businesses continues to follow the Republican presidential candidate's campaign, even as he enjoys a surge in polls. Critics in Arkansas contend Huckabee worked with some of the state's most prominent and politically powerful businesses to draw illegal immigrants to the state to accept low-paying jobs. Huckabee strongly denied the charges . . .

One of Huckabee's Arkansas critics, long-time border-security activist Joe McCutchen, told WND that Freedom of Information Act documents he obtained show unusual business practices and possible improprieties in a 2006 Huckabee decision to attract a Mexican consulate to Little Rock. . . . "Huckabee is an open borders multi-culturalist who put the will and needs of Arkansas corporations before the needs of Arkansas citizens and taxpayers," McCutchen charged. . . . McCutchen's accusations trace back to an Oct. 3, 2003, trip Huckabee, as governor, took with economic development adviser Robert Trevino in a state airplane to visit with Mexico's president at the time, Vicente Fox. During the trip, Huckabee and Trevino explored with Fox the possibility of establishing a Mexican consulate in Little Rock. Trevino . . . district president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, an activist group strongly advocating for rights of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. In 2004, he was appointed [by Huckabee] commissioner of Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, the state agency that subleased the space for the Mexican consulate. . . .

Prominent Arkansas journalists in background briefings . . . painted a different picture, arguing Huckabee put out a subtle, but clear message to illegal immigrants from Mexico, "We wish you no ill in Arkansas. You are welcome to come here to live and to work." Huckabee's message was not hard to understand, an Arkansas source explained. "Arkansas has a lot of low-skilled jobs, including a lot of chicken slaughter houses, and the employers wanted low-pay workers," the source said. McCutchen put it more bluntly. "When he was governor of Arkansas, Huckabee ran what amounted to a sanctuary state. . . Huckabee's real goal was to create the Mexican consulate as a magnet to bring illegal alien workers into the state. . . to benefit companies like Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart, OK Foods, Simmons Foods, George's Farms, Inc. and a host of smaller operations who wanted to employ the illegals for their cheap labor."

Border-security activist Kenny John Wallis, who runs the Arkansas blog Keep Arkansas Legal, agrees with McCutchen. "Huckabee wanted to attract the illegal immigrants for the employers in the state like Tysons Foods that wanted cheap labor. . . In a nutshell, Huckabee went to Mexico a little over three years ago to create a Mexican consulate," Wallis said. "He then had his deputy Bob Trevino work out a deal where the Mexican Consulate was allowed office space at the Arkansas Rehabilitation Center for $1 a year. The Mexican Consulate also had mobile consulates where Mexican officials in vans went across the state helping illegal immigrants stay and work in the state."

Huckabee denied that his goal was to attract illegal alien workers to Arkansas. . . . Still, in May, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported federal immigration agents arrested 21 illegal aliens during a raid on an Arkansas Mexican restaurant chain. That followed federal immigration operations two weeks earlier that arrested more than 100 illegal aliens working at a George's Farms poultry processing plant in Butterfield, Mo., just north of the Arkansas state line in Barry County, Mo. Earlier this month, seven employees of George's Farms in Missouri were arrested on federal charges of hiring illegal immigrants at the processing plant in Barry County. George's Farms is headquartered in Springdale, Ark. . . .

Huckabee faced criticism as governor for supporting pre-natal care for pregnant illegal immigrants and a proposal to allow illegal aliens who graduate from Arkansas high schools to apply for state college scholarships. . . . In 2005, Huckabee called un-Christian, un-American and irresponsible a bill introduced by state Sen. Jim Holt that would have denied state benefits to illegal immigrants and would have required valid proof of citizenship to register to vote. . . . In June 2005, addressing the 76th annual LULAC convention in Little Rock as keynote speaker, Huckabee told the 10,000 political, community and business leaders in attendance, "Pretty soon, Southern white guys like me may be in the minority." Huckabee told LULAC that having their 2005 annual convention in Little Rock was important, because Arkansas had one of the fastest growing populations in the nation, and "Arkansas needs to make the transition from a traditional Southern state to one that recognizes and cherishes diversity 'in culture, in language and in population.'"

McCutchen acknowledged Huckabee declares on his website that he now calls for closing the borders. "But that's 180 degrees from what he did as governor of Arkansas," McCutchen said. "Huckabee will say anything that he thinks is acceptable. He is a dangerous man." McCutchen agrees with Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly's view of Huckabee, cited last week by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal. Schlafly said Huckabee has "destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles. Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee."

"My overall feeling is that Huckabee is a traitor to Arkansas citizens," McCutchen stressed. "He's a multi-culturalist who has done more to damage this state than any other governor of Arkansas. During Huckabee's tenure, we've had 150,000 bankruptcies, more than all previous governors put together. We've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 manufacturing jobs. He has almost doubled the size of state government in his tenure and he is not a man of the people." . . . WND asked Huckabee if he had exerted similar efforts to get consulate offices established for China or any other country with which Arkansas was doing business. He could not cite any other similar efforts. . .. [Complete Article] Background from archives 11/07 Arkansas News Bureau

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Tags: illegal aliens, Jerome Corsi, Joe McCutchin, LULAC, Mexican consulate, Mike Huckabee, Robert Trevino To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!