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Michelle Malkin: ACORN’s Illegal Alien Home-Loan Racket
There’s one thing more shocking than the illegal alien smuggling advice that an ACORN official in San Diego gave undercover journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. It’s the illegal alien home-loan racket that ACORN has already been operating with the full knowledge of the U.S. government.
On Wednesday, O’Keefe and Giles published the fifth in a series of BigGovernment.com sting videos. ACORN official Juan Carlos Vera coached the pimp-and-prostitute-posing pair on how best to pull off a border-busting smuggling operation. It would be “better from Tijuana,” he counseled on videotape. Vera then generously offered the investigative couple his Mexican “contacts” to bring 12 illegal alien girls into the country for prostitution.
GOP California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now wants an investigation. But neither the Terminator nor any other California public official raised a peep when the very same San Diego ACORN office publicly announced a partnership with Citibank to secure home loans for illegal aliens.
In 2005, Citibank and ACORN Housing Corporation — which received tens of millions of tax dollars under the Bush administration alone — began recruiting Mexican illegal aliens for a lucrative program offering loans with below-market interest rates, down-payment assistance and no mortgage insurance requirements. Instead of the Social Security numbers required of law-abiding citizens, the program allows illegal alien applicants to supply loosely monitored tax identification numbers issued by the IRS.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that “undocumented residents” make up a vast market representing a potential sum of “$44 billion in mortgages.” Citibank enlarged its portfolio of subprime and other risky loans. ACORN enlarged its membership rolls. The program now operates in Miami; New York City; Jersey City, N.J.; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Bridgeport, Conn.; and at all of ACORN Housing’s 12 California offices.
San Diego ACORN officials advised illegal alien recruits that their bank partners would take applicants who had little or no credit, or even “nontraditional records of credit, such as utility payments and documentation of private loan payments.”
The risk the banks bear is the price they pay to keep ACORN protesters and Hispanic lobbyists from the National Council of La Raza screaming about “predatory lending” off their backs. These professional grievance-mongers have turned the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act — which forced lenders to sacrifice underwriting standards for “diversity” — into lucrative “business” opportunities. Or rather, politically correct blackmail.
As the Consumer Rights League noted in a 2008 report on the group’s successful shakedowns of financial institutions, “an agreement with Citibank, a significant ACORN donor and partner, showed that some activists become less active when deals are in place.”
In the wake of the sting videos, ACORN officials are making a great show of clamoring for “reform.” ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis blamed the debacles across the country on the “indefensible action of a handful of our employees.” But the corruption is systemic. ACORN has long thrown rank-and-file operatives under the bus to cover for its management’s indefensible conduct. And ACORN’s highly touted advisory watchdogs include inherently conflicted foxes guarding the henhouse:
» ACORN advisory council member Henry Cisneros resigned from his post as Clinton HUD secretary after lying to FBI agents about payments to a former mistress.
» ACORN advisory council member Andy Stern is president of the SEIU, the Big Labor organization plagued by embezzlement scandals and inextricably linked to ACORN’s disgraced founder, Wade Rathke.
» ACORN advisory council member Eric Eve of Citigroup is a champion of the ACORN/Citibank illegal alien loan program that openly undermines immigration laws and integrity in banking.
The truth is more sordid than any fictional scenarios caught on tape: ACORN is a corrupt enterprise.
— Michelle Malkin is author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild. Click here for more information. She can be contacted at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Comments
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» on 09.21.09 @ 07:21 AM
ABC news, CBS news, NBC news used to do real investigative reporting, now it is left to amateurs as they get fat and hang out at the White House eating crumpets and patting themselves on the back, schmoozing and kissing up to the president they got elected. They are now fluff and entertainment producers. Thank goodness for real amateurs who are doing their jobs for them. It takes a couple of 20 somethings to do their work?
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» on 09.21.09 @ 07:23 AM
Get ready for the personal attacks on Malkin, instead of intelligent refute of the presented facts.
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» on 09.21.09 @ 09:39 AM
Yes ACORN is corrupt. As was mentioned in the article they received millions in funding from the Bush Administration and was not only pushed by ACORN but made substantial profits for big banks such as CITI. These loans were all originated over the past 8 years of the Bush Administration in which lending standards and documentation and oversight were eliminated. The peak of the abuse was 2005 through 2007. I am glad to see the Michelle can accurately report that her conservative administration was asleep at the wheel and allowed this to happen. This is one of the few times that I agree with her.
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» on 09.21.09 @ 09:45 AM
EVEN TODAY on Fox News - The ACORN defenders were trying to minimize the impacts of this issue. “Don’t we have other MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DISCUSS IN POLITICS TODAY?”, they inquire [somewhat sheepishly]! WELL, NOT REALLY! * * MEANWHILE in “The Washington Times” = Scribes ponder “civil rights issues” such as (a) Will the US Justice Department’s newly reacted / re-energized Civil Rights Division shall finally handle complaints from Anglos, TOO - not just people of color? AS WELL AS (b) whether “real hope” for fair treatment in ‘civil rights’ complaints will more likely come from the US Civil Rights Commission - not[!] the expected US Department of JUSTICE! “WHAT A COUNTRY”!
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» on 09.21.09 @ 11:42 AM
DAVE
Your big mistake is to watch Fox News and actualy think your are getting real news.
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» on 09.21.09 @ 02:58 PM
Local is the quintessential narrow minded lib (everything that is bad started with Bush even though Obama does no different, or four times worse and if it weren’t for Fox news everyone would be a lib)
Keep bloggin’ local, you’re demonstrating exactly how Obama got elected by the ignorant bigoted narrow minded masses that believe everything on the alphabet network mainstream media (white house propaganda branch) and don’t care if they leave stuff out. How long did they try to ignore the Acorn story before it became too big to ignore? Charles Gibson didn’t even know anything about it, or so he claimed. The funny thing is, FOX is no better or worse or different if you actually took some time to watch it..just like Obama is no better or different than Bush.
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» on 09.21.09 @ 03:03 PM
“The peak of the abuse was 2005 through 2007”
Agreed, during Obama’s campaign while they were sending intimidating black panther thugs to poll places. So of course it’s Bush’s fault even though Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and crew were in control. But the big difference between now and then is that they had not been caught with their pants down yet, and not investigated since they were useful for Obama’s campaign, and for helping the housing collapse, which was the crisis they needed to take over.
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» on 09.23.09 @ 02:22 PM
The only reform ACORN needs is to terminate the whole ACORN organization.
Yes, the ACORN parasites will scatter and then reform under a new name, but it will give us a year or so’s peace from them.
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» on 09.23.09 @ 02:45 PM
this makes me sick, illegal alien rats from the south need to be deported when found not given home loans
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» on 09.24.09 @ 03:52 PM
Good story and it is true. NOW.. if you don’t want these groups spending your tax money shucking and jiving, you need to tell someone who can do something about it.
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