Gubernatorial Candidate Randy Boyd Donated $250,000 to La Raza Affiliate And Has Not Renounced Nashville Sanctuary City Ordinance

Almost immediately after the Metro Nashville Council voted on second reading to pass a sanctuary city ordinance last week, Congressman Diane Black (R-TN-06), State Rep. Judd Matheny (R-Tullahoma) and gubernatorial candidates, Mae Beavers and Bill Lee, issued strong rebukes to the city’s move to violate federal and state law.

The Randy Boyd campaign, despite being asked directly by The Tennessee Star for a comment regarding the proposed Nashville ordinance, did not respond.

In a state where The Tennessee Star’s polling results showed that 1,007 likely Republican primary voters rejected in-state college tuition for illegal aliens by a stunning 84 percent to 11 percent margin and where 1.5 million voters helped elect President Trump, Boyd’s silence on a key immigration issue, could prove costly to his campaign.

Three days after announcing his candidacy for governor on March 6, 2017, The Star reported on Boyd’s $250,000 donation in 2016 to Conexion Americas, an affiliate partner of the National Council of La Raza (NC La Raza). Renata Soto, co- founder and executive director of Conexion Americas served for three years as vice-president of the NC La Raza Board and was elected to lead the NC La Raza board in 2015, the year before Boyd made his donation.

Days later The Star asked Boyd whether he knew about about Soto’s and her Nashville organization’s relationship to NC La Raza as an affiliate partner before he made his donation, but did not receive a response. More recently, however, Boyd, or someone from his campaign posting on his Facebook page, responded when the donation question was posed to him on Facebook on June 13. A source has provided The Star with what the source describes as a screenshot of that post:

The Boyd campaign’s characterization of his donation as made to a “totally separate non-profit commercial kitchen in Nashville” in that June 13 Facebook post is factually inaccurate.

Boyd and his wife Jenny made their $250,000 donation to Conexion Americas,  a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization based in Nashville. The kitchen in question which received those funds, Mesa Komal, is the name of a project that is not a separate entity, but an integral part of Conexion Americas.

Conexion America’s gratitude to Randy Boyd and his wife Jenny is apparent, since they named the kitchen “Connexion America’s Mesa Komal Kitchen & The Jenny and Randy Boyd Kitchen Incubator” as the attached photo from the 2015-2016 Conexion Americas Annual Report shows:

According to its website, “Connexion Americas believes in the collective power that comes from joining forces with other groups, locally and nationally, to advance our mission. The broad coalition that came together to defeat a divisive English Only referendum in 2009 is a great reminder of what can happen when we come together with other groups and individuals around common goals.”

NCLR Nashville Affiliate

We are proudly affiliated with following organizations, with whom we work to build a welcoming and inclusive community for all:

Coalition for Education About Immigration, Founding Member
National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
Nashville for All of Us, Founding Member
Tennessee for All of Us, Founding Member
Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition

According to the Form 990 Conexion Americas filed with the Internal Revenue Service for 2014 and obtained by The Star, it received a little more of $1.3 million in donations, grants, and contributions that year. That form is not yet available for either 2015 or 2016.

According to the letter issued on Conexion Americas letterhead and signed by Soto quoting Boyd on his “decision to invest in Conexión Américas’ culinary incubator,” Boyd’s “$250,000 donation represents the single largest individual gift to Conexión Américas in our 14-year history.”

The NC La Raza, a recipient of Soros funding, lobbies for Hispanic racial preferences, bilingual education, mass immigration, and amnesty for illegal aliens. Their commentary and position statements characterize the U.S. as a nation with widespread white racism and discrimination. NC La Raza has opposed most of the post 9/11 U.S. counter-terrorism efforts.

Shortly after the election of President Trump, Soto declared herself an ‘Indivisible Organizer‘ in Nashville. ‘Indivisible’ is a campaign intended and designed to obstruct President Trump’s agenda for the nation including enforcing U.S. immigration laws.

Boyd has been a vocal opponent of Trump and was quoted as saying that, “[t]he idea of putting my name on anything [for Trump] is anathema to me.”

Soto and Boyd have been linked since the launch of Haslam’s Leadership Tennessee inaugural class. She now serves on the board of Complete Tennessee, Boyd’s education non-profit dedicated to “completing” Haslam’s “Drive to 55” education agenda cited by lawmakers as the reason illegal alien students in Tennessee should be granted the in-state tuition benefit.

Two years before announcing his bid for governor, Boyd declared himself to be a “moderate,” yet another barrier he is trying to counter as reflected in recent campaign mailers with messages reminiscent of Haslam’s 2010 “Jobs4TN” materials. Haslam is generally viewed as having strayed from his professed conservative campaign platform.

Boyd, who shortly after announcing his candidacy said “I generally don’t like labels,” is trying to deflect comparisons to Haslam with labels as “innovator” and “disrupter.” To date, however, he has not offered any positions on either legal or illegal immigration distinguishing himself from Haslam.

During the legislative session in a show of solidarity, Haslam stood on the Capitol steps with supporters of in-state tuition for illegal alien students. He also rejected suing to advance Tennessee’s Tenth Amendment claims with regard to the federal refugee resettlement program. Like Boyd, Haslam supports the Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE).

Boyd is a named member of the PNAE whose stated goals support amnesty for the 11.4 million illegal aliens in the U.S., continued refugee resettlement and in-state tuition for illegal alien students. Boyd has neither retracted his membership in this organization nor their goals on immigration. The PNAE has awarded grant money to Nashville whose Council is preparing to formalize its status as the most liberal sanctuary city in the U.S in a third reading of the proposed ordinance scheduled for July 6.

Nor has Boyd separated himself from Democrat gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean on illegal immigration, a key issue that helped put Trump in the White House. Given Boyd’s embrace of Jeb Bush, who supported an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants, and outright rejection of candidate Trump during the presidential primary, his credibility and appeal with conservative voters might be in jeopardy.

Metro Nashville Council will vote on a third and final reading of the proposed sanctuary city ordinance on July 6.

Grassroots activists in Nashville have vowed to stop passage of the ordinance, and plan on holding a rally earlier that day in opposition.

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