Ali Noorani, director of the National Immigration Forum, concurs that this time there are more allies of reform ready to implement a three-prong strategy: “mobilize the base, win the middle, and marginalize the opposition.” ( Note from D.A.- that would be the majority of the American people)

Translation: SMEAR, SMEAR, SMEAR!

Who and what is the National Immigration Forum?
The below from DISCOVER THE NETWORKS

National Immigration Forum
50 F Street, NW
Suite 300
Washington, D.C.
20001

Phone :202-347-0040
URL: Website

Open Borders group that seeks to legalize all illegal aliens currently in the U.S.
Objected to the creation of a National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which monitored individuals from countries with known terrorist links
Opposed the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal, which sought to empower state and local police to enforce Federal immigration laws

The stated objective of the Washington, D.C.-based National Immigration Forum (NIF) is “to embrace and uphold America’s tradition as a nation of immigrants,” and to “advocate[e] and buil[d] public support for public policies that welcome immigrants and refugees, and that are fair and supportive to newcomers in our country.” NIF claims to head a coalition of more than 250 national organizations and several thousand local groups.

NIF’s activities include the following:
(a) “building alliances … with stakeholders from across the country and across the political spectrum.”
(b) “engaging in direct advocacy … with elected and appointed policy makers at the federal, state, and local level to press for fair and generous immigration-related policies.”
(c) “conducting effective media and public outreach [by] keeping reporters up-to-date with timely information, providing comment on trends and policies, … publish[ing] studies and backgrounders that are widely disseminated, [and conducting] regular trainings and seminars for immigrant leaders and advocates.”

NIF was founded in 1982 by Dale Frederick Swartz, who had directed the Immigrant Rights Project at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and maintained a close working relationship with the National Lawyers’ Guild. Harriet Schaffer Rabb, Ford Foundation Trustee and Co-Director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Columbia School of Law, played a major role in helping Swartz establish the new group. From his earliest days as NIF Director, Swartz focused particularly on securing asylum for Haitian and Central American refugees; legalizing the status of millions of other immigrants; and opposing the “English-Only” movement, which sought to make English the official language of the United States.

The current Executive Director of NIF is Frank Sharry, who strongly advocates increased social welfare benefits for illegal aliens in the United States. Prior to taking over this position from the retiring Swartz in 1990, Sharry had been Executive Director of Centro Presente, a Boston-based agency involved in the Central American sanctuary movement that opposed the Reagan administration’s effort to combat the spread of Communism in that region.

NIF urges the American government to “legalize” en masse all illegal aliens currently in the United States who have no criminal records, and to dramatically increase the number of visas available for those wishing to migrate to the U.S. either to rejoin family members or to work. The objective is to make legal immigration to America so easy that no one will need to resort to illegal means to enter the country. NIF is particularly committed to opening the borders to unskilled, low-income workers, and immediately making them eligible for welfare and social service programs.

Moreover, NIF seeks to undo the mild immigration reforms enacted in 1996, which the organization has called “the harshest crackdown on the rights and opportunities of immigrants in 70 years.” In particular, NIF condemns the 1996 efforts to expedite deportations of illegal aliens, to deport non-citizens who commit “minor” crimes, to deny welfare and social service programs to illegal immigrants, and to track the arrival and departure of every person crossing U.S. borders.

NIF’s opposition to tracking immigrants extends even to those arriving from countries with known terrorist links. For instance, the organization strongly objected to the creation of a National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which was discontinued in December 2003. NSEERS applied mainly to nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria who came to the U.S. on non-immigrant visas; certain non-immigrant visa-holders from other countries that were believed to pose an “elevated national security risk” by the State Department and the INS. Under this plan, fingerprints and photos were taken from such individuals, along with other personal data, when they presented themselves for admission to the U.S.; the fingerprints were then run through intelligence and criminal-records databases to identify wanted criminals or suspected terrorists and prevent them from entering the country. To Frank Sharry and NIF, “these heavy-handed tactics seem more like the old Soviet Union and South Africa.”

NIF is opposed to authorizing state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws; it endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; it characterized the 9/11 attacks as a legal matter to be addressed by criminal-justice procedures rather than military means, and as actions that were sparked by alleged social injustices committed by the U.S.; and it is a sponsoring organization of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition, which seeks to secure ever-expanding rights and civil liberties protections for undocumented workers, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and policy reforms that diminish or eliminate restrictions on immigration.

The NIF Board of Directors includes such notables as: (a) James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute; and (b) Jeanne Butterfield, currently the Executive Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and formerly the Director of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which acted as the political arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Also sitting on the NIF Board are members of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Service Employees International Union, and the Los Angeles branch of the Central American Refugee Center, which backed the Communists in El Salvador’s civil war and helped pioneer the “sanctuary” movement to subvert American immigration law.

NIF has received funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Ford Foundation; George Soros’s Open Society Institute; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; and the Fannie Mae Foundation. As of 2004, NIF’s net assets were $3,160,924. That year, it received grants totaling $3,386,615.