After getting his ass handed to him on immigration reform the first time, John McCain started saying that he’d “gotten the message”. He still insists that his bill wasn’t amnesty, though, making conservatives wary of his immigration ‘transformation’. This information should remove all doubt:

A reader alerted me to the fact that McCain’s “Hispanic Outreach Director” is the same guy who held that job for Mexico’s President Vicente Fox! U.S.-born dual citizen Juan Hernandez was in Fox’s cabinet as Director of the Office for Mexicans Living Abroad and is notorious for having said of Mexican Americans on Nightline on June 7, 2001, “I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’” Does McCain agree with this? Has he offered Hernandez, a former high-level foreign government official who presumably swore an oath to uphold the Mexican constitution, a place in a future McCain Administration? That’s not a rhetorical question.

I’ve said many times that people didn’t trust McCain’s second attempt because La Raza (NCLR) had veto power over anything brought up. NCLR are open borders advocates. Add the hiring Juan Hernandez as his “Hispanic Outreach Director” to the NCLR debacle and you’ve got an immigration reform disgrace. It’s pretty apparent that John McCain hasn’t changed his views one iota. He’s still the same pro-amnesty guy he’s always been.

McCain’s actions tell us what his position is. His actions don’t agree with his words, which is a polite way of saying that McCain shouldn’t be trusted with immigration policy. He’s as stubborn and prideful as anyone I’ve ever seen in public life. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust him on immigration policy if my life depended on it.

Here’s part of what Mark Krikorian wrote way back in 2004:

There’s nothing secret about this effort. President Vicente Fox once referred to himself as president of all 118 million Mexicans, the 100 million in Mexico and the (then-)18 million in the United States, the majority of whom are U.S. citizens. And this is a long-term proposition for them: In June 2001, Juan Hernandez, former head of Fox’s cabinet-level office for relations with Mexicans abroad, said on ABC’s “Nightline,” “I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think, ‘Mexico first.’”

Here’s more of Krikorian’s writings:

IDs for illegals.

One of the biggest problems for illegal aliens is their lack of identification; it prevents them from getting driver’s licenses or bank accounts and leads police to inquire into their legal status when stopped for traffic violations. This is a good thing, because making life difficult for illegal aliens is one important part of any successful effort to prevent illegal immigration.

But the Mexican government rejects our attempts at enforcing immigration controls and has launched a successful effort to get the Mexican consular registration card - known as the matricula consular - to be acknowledged by many banks and local governments.

Acceptance of this card confers a quasi-legal status on illegal aliens, partly shielding them from detection and incorporating them even more completely into our nationallife.

Juan Hernandez certainly knew all about this policy and encouraged it. Now he’s Team McCain’s amnesty policy director? Why should people trust McCain on immigration? Other than his words, what’s changed since McCain first teamed with Ted Kennedy on the first amnesty bill? Granted, he’s repackaged everything but it hasn’t been changed substantively.

This hiring should be seen in this light too: It’s just another instance of John McCain sticking his finger in the GOP’s eye. This is him giving the GOP the finger. It’s time the GOP thanked him for his years of public service, then tell him that they’re moving in a fresh direction.

We need to start down the path to maintaining our national sovereignty. It’s time we stopped practicing Washington politics as usual. Instead, we should reject the insiders’ games that McCain plays.

Most importantly, we should fill John McCain’s inbox with the message that we “got the message” he’s sending on immigration reform and that we reject his message.

UPDATE: Hot Air is all over this:

Hernandez and I go way back. He had a bad habit of calling you “My friend” during TV debates while smoothly peddling open-borders propaganda. I cured that bad habit several years ago during a Fox News segment by pointing out that he was not, in fact, “my friend.”
He is not your friend, either.
Hernandez was a close advisor to Vicente “Welcome to North America” Fox and headed up a Mexican bureaucracy called the “Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad.” It was designed to allow Hernandez to travel across the country, meddling with local, state, and federal immigration enforcement on behalf of millions of illegal
aliens in America. He lobbied for illegal alien driver’s licenses and Mexico first, defended Mexican bus operators carrying illegal aliens to the USA, and promoted extending banking privileges to illegal aliens.

Technorati Tags: Amnesty, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, Juan Hernandez, Immigration, Vicente Fox, Sovereignty, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. The McCain/La Raza connection is surprising, especially considering Hillary’s appointment of Raul Yzaguirre as her campaign co-chair. Yzaguirre was president of La Raza from 1974 - 2004.

   Comment by ZZMike — January 25, 2008 @ 11:15 am

2. Romney’s momentum is gaining by the day. More and more conservative icons (Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc.) are blasting Old Man McCain for his clear pro-amnesty, anti-tax cut, anti-Republican record.

   As Rush said, McCain will destroy the party because he fundamentally disagrees with its core principles.

   Romney gets it. He’s brilliant, he’s a proven genius at turning bad situations into successes and he’s got the family values that the others lack (see McCain’s shameful affair and decision to marry a filthy rich heiress).

   Romney will carry Florida on Tuesday. Mark my word.

   Comment by Dan — January 25, 2008 @ 2:08 pm

3. Does Romney know this?
   Are his people getting the word about McCain and Clinton’s La Raza connections?
   Are they doing something about it?

   This is not the time to be Mr. Nice Guy.

   Comment by T. A. Gray — January 25, 2008 @ 9:09 pm

4. I hate to generalize but EVERY Mormon I’ve EVER met has been horribly over-bearing. It’s the mission to push their message down EVERYONE’S throat. Do I want an overbearing (cult) member as POTUS? Doesnt this go against the grain of conservatism? It just feels wrong to me. Sand in my butt crack so to speak :)

   Without Fred we are really F$#KED…. Why and the hell didnt Fred hang till Super Tuesday? At least as long as Edwards. Hell, UFO Boy Kusinich barely dropped out…

   Why Fred WHY?

   Comment by Mitch the Bitch — January 25, 2008 @ 10:46 pm