To ensure that low-income minorities get taxpayer-subsidized housing Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched a nationwide discrimination probe that, ironically, is focusing on an area where the overwhelming number of public housing residents are Latino and black.
The investigations are being conducted by the DOJ’s bloated civil rights division, which is headed by a renowned illegal immigration advocate (Thomas Perez) who once served as president of a taxpayer-funded group (Casa de Maryland) dedicated to helping illegal aliens. A former Maryland Labor Secretary, Perez has made a number of controversial moves at the DOJ to protect illegal immigrants and minorities in general.
Among them is ordering Colorado to protect the interests of “language minority populations,” suing a public college system for discrimination over a requirement that job applicants furnish proof of residency to get hired and launching an initiative to kill written tests that Perez asserts discriminate against minorities in the workplace.
This month the DOJ’s pro minority act du jour focuses on two cities—Lancaster and Palmdale—in Los Angeles County known as the Antelope Valley. Perez claims they discriminate against blacks and Latinos when it comes to providing federally-subsidized housing known as Section 8, even though 86% of the Section 8 recipients in both cities are minorities, according to the county commissioner (Michael Antonovich) who represents the area. Antonovich accuses Perez, who flew into the Antelope Valley a few days ago to formally announce the probe, of grandstanding.
At the heavily promoted Antelope Valley press conference Perez also announced that his agency has opened a related investigation into allegations of discriminatory policing by the law enforcement agency that patrols the area, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. This is relevant because Perez alleges that deputies harass minority residents of government-subsidized housing in an effort to drive blacks and Latinos out of the historically white area that sits about 60 miles north of the city of Los Angeles.
Officers who patrol the Antelope Valley engage in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of race or national origin, Perez said, revealing that his agency made the determination after “extensive conversations with individuals” in addition to “representatives from community organizations.” During the interviews, DOJ investigators heard “troubling accounts of allegedly unjustified stops and searches,” according to Perez who said his agency is focusing on whether there is a pattern of “racially motivated stops and arrests.”
Under Perez’s leadership the DOJ has launched similar investigations of state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the country, including New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia and Louisiana. It has also created a secret department (National Origin Working Group) within the civil rights division to monitor “discriminatory” laws passed by states and municipalities to control illegal immigration.
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