They show how the operation was worked in the shadows to keep the public out of the process.
You may recall that the National Immigration Forum is one organization that former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has been working closely with for some time to promote amnesty. In fact, he is now on their board of directors: http://immigrationforum.org/
I personally believe that the National Immigration Forum came to Utah to help create a "conservative" face for a national amnesty campaign that we are now engaging.
A lot of special interests, of course, are pushing for amnesty, but the National Immigration Forum (along with the Chamber of Commerce, the Sutherland Institute and Mark Shurtleff ) used Utah as a launching pad for a propaganda operation to push for national amnesty.
The same cast of characters appeared together just this last December to help the National Immigration Forum launch a new amnesty campaign:
http://www.immigrationforum.
Some videos of the conference, including some local members of the cabal: http://forgingconsensus.org/
The National Immigration Forum's report on the Utah Compact:
Along with the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce lurking in the shadows regarding the Utah Compact and HB116, the following astonishing statements about the process leading up to the Utah Compact should cause us all concern.
The statements are from a report put out by the National Immigration Forum titled, "The Utah Compact: One State’s Conservative Approach to
Immigration Reform." The National Immigration Forum is another group that apparently preferred to not be seen as instrumental in creating the Utah Compact. In this report, the early process that led to the Utah Compact is described. It incorporated a high level of public-avoidance:
"In April 2010 just after SB 1070 was signed into law in Arizona, National Immigration Forum consultant Carter Livingston worked with the Sutherland Institute to put together a panel of Utah leaders on immigration policy. Organizers intentionally avoided the term debate or town hall in order to facilitate the conversation, and while the event was open to the public it was not widely publicized to avoid attention from extremists."
The National Immigration Forum - have you heard of their involvement before?
Intentionally trying to avoid public scrutiny and labeling opponents of illegal-immigration as extremists?
"In the following months, the Sutherland Institute privately convened immigration working group discussions."
Privately convened working group discussions?
"With the state’s conservative attorney general now calling for reform, the Sutherland Institute quietly convened a small working meeting of communications professionals to strategize a broader response to actions like the Utah list. The group included communications representatives from the chief of police’s office, the mayor’s office, United Way, the Downtown Alliance (a group representing more than 2,500 business and property owners in downtown Salt Lake City) and Carter Livingston on behalf of the National Immigration Forum."
Quietly meeting with communication professionals?
Carter Livingston from the National Immigration Forum at the meeting?
"Together, this group began brainstorming a set of principles around immigration reform unique to the culture and values of Utah."
A group of communications professionals and a National Immigration Forum operative began brainstorming the principles that would become the Utah Compact?
"By the end of the summer [2010], a draft of the Compact was complete and the authors began quietly sharing it ..."
Quietly sharing the draft?
"Working with the communications team at the National Immigration Forum, the Compact writers formulated a media plan to announce the Compact. A show of public strength was essential and going public too early could have scared off supporters. Thus, communications planning was kept private until the signing ceremony."
A communications team at the National Immigration Forum?
Secret media plan?
In a section titled, "Keeping it Quiet," we have the following:
"Rather than announcing several months prior that a Compact was formulating, the authors of the Compact worked discreetly and were selective in their discussions. This way, if signing the Compact could be sensitive for someone like a police chief, they minimized political risk until everyone could unite to provide political cover..."
Working discreetly?
Providing political cover?
What does all this add up to?
The process that led up to the Utah Compact was kept in the shadows by the groups putting it together.
Those groups apparently included the National Immigration Forum, the Sutherland Institute and the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce.
The kick-off event in the Utah Compact process seems to have been the Sutherland Institute's forum, "Our Undocumented Neighbors: What the Conversation Should Be About,” which featured Bishop Wester of Salt Lake City and former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman.
Videos of this event, which was held on June 24, 2010, are available on Youtube.
In the first video of the event, Paul Mero thanks Reform Immigration For America (an umbrella organization pushing for amnesty - closely connected to the National Immigration Forum) and Carter Livingston (who we have already seen was coordinating efforts in Utah on behalf of the National Immigration Forum) - he thanks them for "helping us facilitate this event." Mr. Mero then goes on to introduce both Bishop Wester and Brett Tolman.
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