CFR touts Huck's sympathy for illegals

Posted: December 14, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

While many pro-life supporters trace Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls to his success in the Sept. 17 Values Voter Presidential Debate, his recent success can also be traced to increased coverage by the Council on Foreign Relations.

The CFR's increased focus on Huckabee began with a speech on foreign policy posted Sept. 28 on the Council on Foreign Relations website.

The Sept. 28 speech, delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., focused entirely on foreign policy, portraying Huckabee as a cautious supporter of Bush administration policy in Iraq.

An Oct. 29 University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll notes Huckabee's support through August was flat, beginning to rise noticeably in September and October.

The poll noted, "While Mike Huckabee has gained ground dramatically since the August Hawkeye Poll, he is still well behind Rudy Giuliani."

Today, many consider Huckabee the front-runner in Iowa.

Yet, despite obtaining the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, the founder of The Minuteman Project, Huckabee is dogged by his pro-illegal immigration record as Arkansas governor.

Which is the real Huckabee – the last, best hope of Jim Gilchrist to secure the border, or the wink-wink border activist just posturing to win conservative votes in Republican primaries?

Evidently unimpressed with Huckabee's recent rhetoric emphasizing border security, a profile of Huckabee on the Council on Foreign Relations' "Campaign 2008" blog, emphasizes only Huckabee's open-borders record supporting illegal immigration.

The profile of Huckabee posted on the CFR website begins a synopsis of the candidate's position on immigration by noting, "The former Arkansas governor has openly sympathized with the needs of illegal immigrants."

Among the points emphasized on the CFR blog are the following:

• Huckabee has advocated prenatal care for pregnant immigrants;
• According to the Arkansas News Bureau, Huckabee has proposed a scholarship program for illegal immigrants who graduate from Arkansas high schools;
• According to the Associated Press, Huckabee criticized a 2005 federal immigration raid in Arkansas;
• Huckabee has expressed support for illegal immigrants under some conditions;
• In an interview with ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulos, Huckabee said, "We should have a process where people can pay the penalties, step up and accept responsibility for not being here legally." He added: "The objective is not to be punitive. The objective is to make things right."
• Huckabee has also expressed support for some type of barrier along the border with Mexico.

Huckabee has received attention on the CFR website from Michael J. Gerson, a former speech writer for President George W. Bush who joined the CFR in July 2006 as a Roger Hertog senior fellow.

The CFR is currently featuring a Nov. 9 article Gerson wrote in the Washington Post entitled, "The Huckabee Difference."

Gerson noted, "In our conversation he [Huckabee] was highly critical of Fred Thompson's view that abortion policy should be left to the states," making no comment on Huckabee's immigration policies.

WND has documented Huckabee's efforts in 2006 to finance with state funds and contributions made by private commercial developers a Mexican customs office established in Little Rock.

In establishing the Mexican consulate in Little Rock, Huckabee was assisted by his economic development officer, Robert Trevino, who was then also district president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, also known as LULAC, an activist group strongly advocating for rights of Hispanic immigrants in the United States.

Trevino moved on to be the commissioner of the Arkansas Rehabilitations Services, where he signed a July 7, 2006 "Facilities Use Agreement" agreement leasing space for the Mexican consulate to set up a temporary office in the Arkansas Rehabilitations Services Building at the cost of $1 per year, until a permanent facility could be built in Little Rock to house the consulate office.

Bob Burrow, an Arkansas commercial real estate developer, told WND his firm spent $1.2 million in facilitating Huckabee's deal with Mexico, buying the property and building for Mexico the consulate office at 3500 South University Ave. in Little Rock.

At no cost to Mexico, the consulate was opened on April 25 this year.

Huckabee told WND he and Trevino traveled south of the border in a state airplane in 2003 to pursue the deal with Mexico because he believed having a Mexican consulate in Little Rock would support Arkansas exports to Mexico.

Yet, the Mexican office Huckabee sought to put in Little Rock was not a trade mission office, but a consulate office.

Nationwide, Mexican consulate offices are known for supporting illegal aliens in their effort to get various kinds of identification, work permits, driver's licenses and bank accounts.

Huckabee's website still presents him as saying, "Securing our borders must be our top priority and has reached the level of a national emergency."

Yet, the Washington Times quoted Ray Beck, president of NumbersUSA, as saying Huckabee "was an absolute disaster on immigration as governor."

The bottom line is the CFR would be unlikely to give favorable attention to any candidate who was truly for securing our borders by building a fence.

The evidence of Huckabee's record as governor, regardless what Gilchrist may say, is that he helped create Arkansas as a sanctuary state, serving the interest of the Arkansas corporations that wanted to exploit the cheap labor readily available from an open flow of illegal immigrants.

This, Huckabee's actual record on immigration while governor rather than his newfound border-security rhetoric, is a record the CFR globalists appear to be signaling the organization is prepared to embrace and promote with increased coverage that curiously coincides with Huckabee's recent rise in the polls.

Jerome R. Corsi is a staff reporter for WND. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including his latest best-seller, "The Late Great USA." Corsi co-authored with John O'Neill the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." Other books include "Showdown with Nuclear Iran," "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," which he co-authored with WND columnist Craig. R. Smith, and "Atomic Iran."