Raul Yzaguirre, one of President Joe Biden’s Medal of Freedom recipients last week, has a history of working with far-left groups.
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), now called UnidosUS — where Yzaguirre served as CEO and president for 30 years — has many connections to far-left organizations and even a school founded on a racial-separatist ideology.
In 2002, La Raza partnered with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to prevent stronger Voter ID laws. In November 2004, one of La Raza’s executives, Janet Murguia, appeared to support illegal immigrants voting after Arizona voters approved a ballot measure requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
La Raza also reportedly helped fund Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano De Aztlan (MEChA), a “radical” student organization that “recruits and indoctrinates Latino youths into a radical reconquista agenda,” Judicial Watch explained, adding that the group believes that it will “eventually lead to the reclamation of the American southwest for the Mexican people.”
La Raza also provided extensive funding to Academia Semillas del Pueblo (ASDP), a “self-segregating” charter school funded by Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that seeks to “help disadvantaged Latinos to earn a quality education.” However, Judicial Watch reported that “Academia Semillas del Pueblo is not much more than a training ground for the Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest – by force or by ballot box – and return it to Mexico.
In addition, during Yzaguirre’s tenure as president, he awarded the annual Chicano Hero Award in 1994 to Jose Angel Gutierrez, a Mexican-American professor who was outspoken against white people and pushed for Mexican “Reconquista.”
This is the sort of political activist the Biden administration deems worthy of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.