Judge, law firm bringing Trump U case both tied to La Raza

President Obama addressing the Council of La Raza

NEW YORK – The federal judge presiding over the Trump University class action lawsuit is a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, a group that while not a branch of the National Council of La Raza, has ties to the controversial organization, which translates literally "The Race."

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who has been criticized by Donald Trump as a "hater" appointed by President Obama who should be recused from the case, listed his membership in the "La Raza Lawyers of San Diego" on a judicial questionnaire he filled out when he was selected to be a federal judge. He was named in a brochure as a member of the selection committee for the organization's 2014 Annual Scholarship Fund Dinner & Gala. Meanwhile, the San-Diego based law firm representing the plaintiffs in the Trump University case, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, was listed as a sponsor of the event.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel

WND reported the San Diego firm paid $675,000 to the Clintons for speeches, and the firm's founder is a wealthy San Diego lawyer who served a two-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a kickback scheme to mobilize plaintiffs for class-action lawsuits.

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While critics of Trump have argued that the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ association is not affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, consider the following:

The San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of California, affiliated with the Chicano/Latino Bar Association of California.
On the website of the La Raza Lawyers Association of California, at the bottom of the “Links & Affiliates Page,” the National Council of La Raza is listed.
The website of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is joint-listed as San Diego’s Latino/Latina Bar Association.
On the “endorsements” page, the combined website lists the National Council of La Raza as part of the “community,” along with the Hispanic National Bar Association,, a group that emerged with a changed name from the originally formed La Raza National Lawyers Association and the La Raza National Bar Association tracing its origin back to 1971.

Further, while the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association and the National Council of La Raza are legally separate incorporated entities, the two groups appear to have an affiliation that traces back to the emergence of MEChA, the Moviemento Estudiantil Chicanos de Atzlán.

MEChA is a 1960s radical separatist student movement in California that espoused the mythical Aztec idea of a “nation of Aztlán," comprising much of the southwestern United States, including California.

As David Horowitz points out on his website Discover the Networks that La Raza, Spanish for “the race,” also has roots in the early 1960s with a “united front” organization, the National Organization for Mexican American Services, NOMAS. The group initially was funded by the Ford Foundation, and subsequently by George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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In 1968, the Southwest Council of La Raza was organized with Ford Foundation funding. In 1972, the group changed its name to the National Council of La Raza and opened an office in Washington, D.C.

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Award to illegal alien

At the 2014 San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association event at which Curiel served as a panel member, one of the recipients of a $1,500 scholarship, Ricardo Elorza, boast about being an illegal immigrant.

“Mr. Elorza wishes to someday tell any student struggling with higher education, ‘Look, a boy from Oaxaca, who did not know English, and is undocumented has now graduated from law school and is an attorney,” the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ Association brochure for the 2014 Annual Scholarship Fund Dinner & Gala said.

The “Pro Bono & Community Service” page on the Robbins Geller website lists the La Raza Scholarship Fund as one of the causes the firm’s attorney and staff have supported for more than a decade.

In 2014, the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Scholarship Fund named past president and then-current endorsement committee chair George Aguilar, a Robbins Geller attorney, as the groups 2014 Attorney of the Year.

On May 26, the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association held a reception for Curiel, honoring him “for his leadership and support to the community and to our association.”

Hillary Clinton’s ties to La Raza

In 2007, Hillary Clinton named Raul Yzaguirre, the former president of the National Council of La Raza, to co-chair her presidential campaign and to lead its outreach to Hispanic voters.

In the announcement, the Clinton campaign noted that under Yzaguirre’s leadership, the National Council of La Raza became the largest Hispanic advocacy organization in the nation, with 41 state affiliates and revenues exceeding $3 million, including corporate contributions, philanthropic foundation grants, federal taxpayer support and private member donations.

Yzaguirre was a member of the 2007 Council on Foreign Relations task force that published a report titled “Building a North American Community,” which some critics regard as the blueprint for the creation of a regional North American Union modeled after the European Union.

Clinton addressed the National Council of La Raza annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in July 2015.

In the speech, Hillary attacked Trump, characterizing him as engaging in hate speech toward Latinos.

“It was appalling to hear Donald Trump describe immigrants as drug dealers, rapists, and criminals,” Clinton said. “He’s talking about people you and I know, isn’t he? He’s talking about people who love this country, work hard, and want nothing more than a chance to build a better life for themselves and their children.”

She then attacked Trump for not apologizing to Hispanics.

“And when people and businesses everywhere rejected his hateful comments, did he apologize? No. He doubled down,” Clinton continued. “It’s shameful. And no one should stand for it.

“So I have just one word for Mr. Trump: BASTA! Enough!” she concluded, receiving an enthusiastic response from her audience.

La Raza named in anti-Trump violent protests

While the National Council on La Raza has made clear the organization does not endorse anti-Trump protesters engaging in violent acts, demonstrators in California were marked by the presence of Mexican flags, which resonates with the separatist ideology of radical La Raza Hispanic activists in California since the 1960s.

Commentators such as talk-host Tammy Bruce and former Republican Rep. Allen West have identified anti-Trump protesters in California as La Raza activists.

On May 27, an estimated 1,000 anti-Trump protesters waved Mexican flags and burned Trump “Make America Great Again” baseball caps outside the San Diego Convention Center while chanting slogans protesting Trump’s candidacy and his vow to build a wall to control illegal immigration.

See video of San Diego anti-Trump protesters burn a Trump hat:

Another video shows protesters with Mexican flags disrupting a pro-Trump rally in Temecula, California, on March 26:

On June 3, Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, wrote in an April 3 column for Breitbart that the recent increase in violent Hispanic demonstrations suggests the influence of La Raza activists, with the group's history of identifying with the Mexican Reconquista movement.

“The Mexican Reconquista movement is a rejection of American sovereignty over lands that, according to mythology, were formerly held by the Aztecs throughout the southwestern United States,” Manning noted. “And it is telling that many of the anti-Trump protesters reject his notion to ‘make America great again’ instead waving Mexican flags while burning the Stars and Stripes.”