A leftist pro-illegal alien organization in California is in the spotlight amid evidence it helped facilitate the riots that have rocked Los Angeles. But the violence sweeping the streets of LA has its roots in a decades-old radical movement in thrall to a warped vision of Mexican supremacy in the Golden State.
“Videos show rioters using hammers to break off concrete from nearby structures to create projectiles to hurl at officers,” The Center Square reported June 7. “Some of the demonstrators identified with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), a pro-immigration organization given a $450,000 grant by the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security for ‘citizenship education and training.’”
That’s just a small drop in the bucket for the lavishly financed group. Investigative X account DataRepublican reveals CHIRLA amassed a whopping $34 million in government grants in the fiscal year ending June 2023, mostly from the state of California.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on June 11 announced he was launching an investigation. “Credible reporting now suggests that your organization has provided logistical support and financial resources to individuals engaged in these disruptive actions,” Hawley wrote in a letter to CHIRLA Executive Director Angelica Salas. “Let me be clear: bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct.”
Two questions immediately come to mind: What is CHIRLA, and who is Angelica Salas? Both inquiries lead directly to the Marxist-tinged radicalism of the 1960s repurposed for the “immigration rights” campaigns of today.
“The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) was established in 1986 ‘to advance the human and civil rights of immigrants and refugees in Los Angeles; promote harmonious multi-ethnic and multi-racial human relations; and… empower immigrants and their allies to build a more just society,” watchdog website Discover the Networks states.
Note the declared aim of social transformation. The tranquil mission statement proved far more inflammatory in actual practice.
‘2,000 Miles Of Stolen Native Land’
CHIRLA garnered attention during the epic 1990s California battle over Proposition 187, which would have barred illegal aliens “from using social services, health care, and public education,” Discover the Networks relates.
Extremism marked CHIRLA. “At that time, CHIRLA member Juan Perrino was already on record as having said that Prop 187 was ‘a continuation of the policies and practices of a nation… [that had stolen] someone else’s homeland,’” the dossier continues. “Referring to America as the ‘United States of Aggression,’ Perrino characterized the US as a country ‘made up of 2,000 by 2,000 miles of stolen native land.’”
As the fight over Prop 187, which permanently transformed California socially, culturally and politically, was about to begin, a young Mexican who illegally crossed the border with an aunt as a child was attending Occidental College in LA as part of that school’s aggressive efforts to further “multiculturalism” on campus.
From College Radical to LA Immigration Queen
Angelica Salas was an activist at an early age. “Yes, I was involved with MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán)” at Occidental, Salas told Duke University Press’s Radical History Review in a 2005 interview. In fact, she was regarded as a “student leader” by fellow leftists there.
MEChA has been widely denounced as an openly racist Chicano identity organization. Its motto is “for the race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing.” It is still thriving today, although many chapters seek to distance themselves from their controversial origins, which include a bizarre claim that large portions of the US must be taken back for the Mexican people.
No such distancing was going on in the 1990s.
“Aztlan is the area that is currently the southwest United States, but Mechistas claim Aztlan is their homeland to be returned to Mexico and the group says white Americans who currently govern these areas must be removed from power,” Fox News reported in 2003 when another former MEChA member, California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, mounted an unsuccessful bid for governor.
Fox reported that MEChA regularly resorted to the actions now being seen in LA.
“MEChA has used violence in the past to make its case. At a July 4 celebration in 1996, members of the group, who call themselves Mechistas, were videotaped attacking black and white Americans protesting illegal immigration,” the network wrote. “In 1993, students at UCLA caused $500,000 worth of damage during protests to demand a Chicano studies department.”
MEChA student leader Angelica Salas graduated from Occidental in 1993.
CHIRLA also has extremely close ties to another radical group with Mexican supremacist ties.
“On March 17, 1995, the ‘New California Coalition’ – a triumvirate consisting of CHIRLA, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund [MALDEF], and the American Civil Liberties Union – held a meeting in Los Angeles to discuss immigration-related issues,” Discover the Networks writes. “Among the attendees were Juan Perrino and Gaston Rosas, Administrative Officer of the Mexican Consulate.”
Mario Obledo, a co-founder of MALDEF acclaimed as the “Godfather of the Latino Movement” who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton in 1998, bluntly laid out his vision of a coming California.
“In five years the Hispanics are going to be the majority population of this state,” Obledo is captured saying on a recording of a telephone interview, NPR reported in 2010. “You also made the statement that California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. Did you say that?” he was then asked. “I did. They ought to go back to Europe,” Obledo replied.
Key point: CHIRLA still embraces the rhetoric behind the Aztlan myth.
“Let’s remember: No one is illegal on stolen land,” the group exclaimed in a January 28 post on its official X account that featured a video clip of pro-illegal alien remarks made by former GOP President George W. Bush.
Salas has publicly declared that she wants to see untold millions more “migrants” flow into America.
‘83 Million People Seeking Refuge’
“Right now you know, the United States boasts [that] one million people are allowed to come into the US every year but what they don’t say is this one million people is out of over 250 million individuals who have been forced to leave their home countries and to migrate,” she said in April 2022 during a podcast hosted by fellow radical organization Latinx House.
“Right now there are close to 83 million people seeking refuge who are considered refugees and yet this country has only put as a goal for entrance into the country of 125,000 refugee entrants,” she added. “That doesn’t make any sense. These limited quotas of entry into the United States need to change.”
Make no mistake: This is what the violent thugs in the streets are rioting over in LA. It’s nothing short of an attempted takeover of major chunks of the United States. And heavily funded professional radicals sparked by a racially combative quasi-Marxist lineage are leading the charge.
