By Lincoln Kahn
Victor Toro, who has spent the last two decades promoting the rights of illegal aliens in the Bronx, New York, was arrested on July 6th.
Guess what? It turns out that Toro himself was never legally in the United States. He now faces deportation. His shocked supporters have organized numerous rallies and fundraisers to pay attorneys’ fees and they’ve persuaded The New York Times to run a sympathetic account of his plight. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/nyregion/11activist.html?ex=1341806400&en=6c471e0c0e273acf&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss, By Anthony Ramirez, New York Times, July 11, 2007
Where is Toro from and how did he get here?
In the early 1970’s Toro was one of the three founders of a Chilean political party called the MIR, or the Movement of the Revolutionary Left. Yes, Toro was an avowed Communist and fervent admirer of Fidel Castro who sought the overthrow of his country’s elected democratic government. He stood even further out on the left than Salvador Allende.Toro was forced into exile when Augusto Pinochet came to power in a coup, restored order and rebuilt the economy. In the years that followed, Toro claims, he drifted about Europe.
At some point, though, he wound up living in Cuba. It was there, in 1980, that his daughter was born.
But, like so many extremists, it seems that Toro was in favor of the revolution in principle but eager to enjoy the fruits of capitalism in practice. So he moved to the U.S. and set up a storefront organization promoting radical agitation in the Bronx. His presence in the Bronx, of course, not only violated U.S. immigration laws, but was also almost certainly a violation of the McCarran-Walter Act, which barred political undesirables from entering the country.(McCarran-Walter was repealed by the Immigration Act Of 1990, after Toro settled in the US.)
In the years that followed Toro concerned himself with promoting far-left causes in the U.S. and leading marches and rallies against Pinochet. He also worked to help illegals and received substantial grant aid to subsidize his work. An internet search shows receipt of at least one disbursement of $50,000 alone.
Throughout this time though, it appears that he did not bother to master English. Consequently, when Toro (who refused my repeated requests for an interview) spoke to the Newspaper of Record and posed for photos, his Cuban-born daughter had to do the translating for him.
http://vdare.com/kahn/070808_toro.htm