Janet Murguia, the 46-year-old president and CEO of La Raza, denies that her group opposes free expression. But she has said La Raza is ready to send a “warning to those elected officials who believe immigrant bashing is a strategy without consequence.”
The National Council of La Raza had planned to hold its 2009 annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri. But in October it told city fathers that it was moving the conference elsewhere because Mayor Mark Funkhouser was refusing to comply with one very specific demand: The city must remove 73-year-old Frances Semler from her appointed position as one of five members of the city board of parks and recreation. Semler, a neighborhood activist and grandmother, had not violated any laws; neither had she done anything unethical, nor did La Raza object to her positions concerning Kansas City recreation programs and the city’s parks. Semler’s offense was that she is an outspoken proponent of upholding U.S. laws against illegal aliens.
According to La Raza, the problem is that Semler is an active member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group dedicated to securing the U.S. border from unlawful entry by illegal aliens. Mayor Funkhouser, who appointed Semler to the parks board in June, has so far resisted La Raza’s call for Semler’s removal. He notes that her views on illegal immigration are unrelated to her duties on the parks board, which deals with issues such as outdoor party permits and off-leash dog areas, and her right of expression is protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Semler says she joined the Minutemen because the government had failed to enforce immigration laws. Minutemen members “sit on lawn chairs with binoculars and a can of Coke or something and watch to see if anyone is coming across” the U.S.-Mexico border, she says. But city boosters are dismayed that Semler remains on the board and want a compromise. The Kansas City Star, which reports that the city stands to lose up to $5 million in business, blames the mayor for not vetting Semler’s background. It labels the Minutemen a “militant group” that “demonizes immigrants” while it characterizes La Raza as “a national Hispanic civil rights organization.”