Where's Carlos?
Oregon taxpayers aren’t the only ones with money
There’s one name you rarely see or hear in any of the stories and protests condemning President Trump’s immigration policies: Carlos Slim.
His name was nowhere to be found when The Oregonian revisited the Equity Corps of Oregon, a $15 million pilot project Oregon lawmakers approved in 2022 to provide immigrants facing deportation with free state-funded legal representation.
Free?
Somebody had to pay for it. Since it was approved by the state Legislature, the money came from Oregon taxpayers.
It didn’t come from Carlos Slim.
In the not too-distant past, the name Carlos Slim topped Bill Gates’ name on the list of wealthiest men in the world.
Between 2010 and 2013, Forbes magazines ranked Slim as the richest person in the world. He made his fortune through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso, with products in industrial, media, retail and telecommunications.
Born in Mexico City in 1940, Slim’s father was a businessman who taught him accounting and financial principles. He made his first stock investment at age 12.
As of December 2024, Slim was ranked as the 18th-richest person in the world by Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $85 billion in US currency — making him the richest person in Latin America.
Yet none of the state legislators touting Equity Corps of Oregon in The Oregonian dropped Slim’s name while advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants in need of an attorney.
With his vast wealth, Slim could easily provide attorneys for Oregon’s roughly 120,000 undocumented or illegal immigrants. How come The Oregonian let him off the hook?
The gist of The Oregonian’s story is that the Equity Corps of Oregon is failing to represent people who have entered the U.S. illegally “as President Donald Trump threatens to launch the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Where’s Carlos?
He’s got plenty of money to throw around so why aren’t Oregon’s progressive Democrats demanding that he help his people?
For that matter, why isn’t he fixing the problems that drive Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans to flee their homes and come to the U.S.
Are American taxpayers the only rich people on the planet?
All countries have their one-percenters. Even Haiti.
Yet it’s Americans who are saddled with guilt. Are we presumed to be more sympathetic than other nationalities? If so, what does that say about other nationalities?
The Oregonian singled out three state legislators who testified in support of the Equity Corps of Oregon when it was approved in 2022 — Rep. Andrea Valderrama, D-East Portland; then-Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, D-Woodburn and Sen. Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton/Southwest Portland.
The story didn’t question if any of the illegal immigrants being deported were accused of committing other crimes after entering the country illegally. There is a difference between people who don’t have a legal right to be in the U.S., and those who are being deported for committing crimes — especially those who have been forbidden to enter the country.
The story also failed to note that Oregon has been facing an alleged “indigent defense crisis” in which there are not enough defense attorneys to provide free representation for accused criminal offenders who are legal residents.
Yet Valderrama, Leon and Lieber wanted all illegal immigrants in Oregon facing deportation to have a good lawyer for free.
The Oregonian story noted that three years on, it’s now difficult to determine if Equity Corps of Oregon has been successful. There is no indication of how many illegal immigrants received representation and how many avoided deportation. There is minimal oversight of the program.
But in the current legislative session, there is a request for more money.
Valderrama is a chief sponsor of House Bill 2543, which would maintain previous funding levels: $10.5 million from the General Fund to the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to be deposited in the Universal Representation Fund, and another $4.5 million from the General Fund to be transferred via the Judicial Department to the Oregon State Bar to provide legal services on immigration matters.
HB 2543 is currently in the House Judiciary Committee and has been referred to the Joint Ways and Means Committee where budgeting recommendations are made. It carries an emergency clause — “being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist.” That means it cannot be challenged at the ballot box.
Sen. Lieber is co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, and Valderrama is a member.
Valderrama calls herself the first Peruvian American in the Oregon state legislature. (More intriguingly is how she first got into the state House. During the #MeToo frenzy, Valderrama took out a restraining order on her ex-boyfriend, state Rep. Diego Hernandez and later filed a formal complaint against him with the legislature. The controversy eventually led him to resign. Valderrama applied for his legislative seat and was awarded it. She later noted that her presence helped make the Oregon’s House of Representatives majority female for the first time.)
On her official website, Valderrama states, “My office values are centered within Incan communal values and principles and include ayni (reciprocity), yachay (knowing), munay (love), llank'ay (work).” (Presumably she doesn’t support the Incan practice of human sacrifice.)
Where does a wealthy man like Carlos Slim fit into her allegiance to Incan values?
Slim probably made his biggest splash in 2009 when he stepped in and helped The New York Times avoid bankruptcy. Today, he is the largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, which is still majority-owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family.
Jumping in and offering $15 million to cover attorney fees for Oregon’s illegal immigrants would be peanuts to Slim.
Free legal representation for illegal immigrants isn’t the only Oregon legislative bill being considered involving immigration. Among other bills:
House Bill 2586 would permit an asylum seeker, who is a student at a public university in Oregon, to receive an exemption from nonresident tuition and fees. It passed the House on a partisan vote of 36-18 (with six excused) and is now in the Senate.
Senate Bill 611 would provide state-funded food benefits to immigrants who are under 26 years old or 55 and older and are ineligible for SNAP benefits because of their immigrant status. (A 2023 bill that died in a budget subcommittee would have included all ineligible immigrants, regardless of their age.) SB 611 is scheduled for a public hearing March 25 before the Senate Committee on Human Services.
Senate Bill 703 directs the Department of Human Services to provide grants to nonprofit service providers to assist noncitizens in changing their immigration status or obtaining lawful permanent resident status. SB 703 is currently assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but no hearing has been scheduled.
House Bill 2548, one of the most contentious pieces of proposed legislation, establishes the Farmworker Standards Board for agricultural workers, prohibits employers from firing them without just cause, establishes minimum working standards and provides remedies for agricultural workers alleging a violation of the minimum standards. This bill also carries an emergency clause.
All this care and concern over illegal immigrants in Oregon is happening while another story slowly evolves over noncitizens voting in state elections. The Secretary of State’s Office has asked the Oregon Department of Justice to investigate at least three people who were not U.S. citizens but may have voted.
The trio are among more than 1,600 people who were erroneously reported as U.S. citizens by the Motor Vehicle Services Division and referred to the Secretary of State’s Office for voter registration. Investigators haven’t yet determined whether noncitizens have voted.
The American mainstream media — as well as the two major political parties — have avoided confronting problems with illegal immigration for too long. It’s easy to blame Donald Trump and Elon Musk for daring to ask questions. Are we afraid of the answers?
Earlier this week, Carlos Slim’s New York Times led off a story with this: “Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual, suggested on Monday that his government cost-cutting team would scrutinize Social Security and other entitlement spending, describing the expenditures as rife with fraudulent transactions and repeating a conspiracy theory that Democrats were using the programs as a ‘gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants and have them stay in the country.’”
Times reporter Zach Montague quickly dismissed Musk’s interview with Fox Business commentator Larry Kudlow as repeating “familiar and unsupported claims about entitlement spending.”
The Times might consider why these claims are unsupported: Perhaps our news media, even with its First Amendment protections, haven’t delved into them.
Montague stated, as if it were an unassailable fact, “Contrary to Mr. Musk’s claims on Monday, undocumented immigrants working in the United States do not collect Social Security payments, but they pay tens of billions of dollars into the program every year.”
How does Montague know there are no undocumented immigrants collecting Social Security?
The American news media miss so many stories — sometimes staring us right in the face.
In 1996, I covered a quintuple homicide in San Bernardino, Calif. It was a home-invasion robbery in which a mother, father and three kids were murdered. At the time, San Bernardino had a lot of gang-related shootings involving blacks and Hispanics trying to kill one another over drugs. This involved an Asian gang preying on a Vietnamese family believed to have a lot of money and valuables.
The family lived in a rental house in a rundown neighborhood. Why were they presumed to have money? Because the father was receiving Social Security illegally while also operating a landscaping business. A Los Angeles police detective, who specialized in Asian gangs, said this was not uncommon. The Vietnamese culture didn’t trust banks and often kept their cash hidden at home. The family did have about $10,000 in cash, but the gang demanded more.
The reference to the father receiving Social Security illegally was repeated so casually, nobody — including me — paid much attention. Compared to a quintuple homicide it seemed inconsequential. But is it — if it becomes an accepted practice that grows and continues for years?
Some stories are deliberately tamped down by the news media.
Here’s another example related to immigration from when I was a reporter in San Bernardino.
I spotted a reference to “Hansen’s Disease” on a list of all the communicable diseases that had been reported in the county for a particular year. I knew Hansen’s Disease was leprosy, so I called the county. They were not concerned — rightfully so, because the disease is generally curable, and it was never as contagious as it was once believed to be. I was told that it was someone from The Philippines who was new to San Bernardino.
I talked it over with one of my editors, and his concern was that if we wrote about it, everybody would look at their neighbor, coworker or anyone who was Filipino and wonder, “Is this the leper?”
I could see his point. I didn’t push it.
The real issue is: We don’t know who’s coming into this country. We’re like someone who lives in a grand house and keeps the doors unlocked — even left wide open in some cases.
That is certainly not how Carlos Slim lives.
Once more, what largely remains unsaid, truth is spoken here at PORTLAND DISSENT.
As a first generation American, my father only got his citizenship after he was in Basic Training in 1944 before being shipped to Europe. There is literally no country on earth that does not manage immigration; and in fact the vast majority of countries are much tougher than the US.
Fitzsimmons makes the key point of distinguishing between illegal aliens who commit crimes and people who came here without official permission.
The irony of Oregon taxpayers footing the bill for lawyers to represent accused criminals who are also illegally in the country, but simultaneously forbidding any law enforcement agency from even enquiring about one's status in the United States is absurd. Treaties require arrested aliens to be advised that their country's consulate can assist them, but if the sheriff is forbidden of asking what country an inmate has citizenship with, how on earth can they inform them of their right to consult with "their" country's representative (Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 8 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 236).
Local media doesn't like dealing with this stuff; they prefer letting self-dealers and NGO shills in the legislature set the agenda, which they then repeat as if it's "news." We've had this casual corruption for so long from our newspapers of record (both fighting over the same headlines) that we take it as the way journalism ought to be practiced. It ain't.