Mega millionaire Randy Boyd says that how he spends his millions, including the $250,000 donation to Conexion Americas or his interlocking education initiative that demands “education equity” for illegal alien students, “has nothing to do with immigration or in-state tuition,” issues that have fueled frustration with the growing illegal alien population in Tennessee.
After Governor Haslam announced that he would allow the new anti-sanctuary bill to become law without his signature, Renata Soto, co-founder and director of Conexion Americas, posted a strongly worded rebuke of the Governor and his decision:
Governor, by letting this un-American racial profiling law go into effect, you have put a target on the back of thousands of Tennesseans, rejected the values upon which our nation was founded, and set our state backwards.
Soto’s statement also confirmed that there are “thousands” of illegal aliens in Tennessee and the Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE), a globalist big business lobby confirms that they are working in the state. With Soto’s help and Boyd’s money, those numbers are likely to increase.
When Governor Haslam campaigned in 2009, he claimed he’d be tough on illegal immigration and yet, over the course of his two terms, estimates from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) show that the illegal alien population in Tennessee increased by approximately 11%.
The PNAE’s 2016 Tennessee specific report, claims that the “undocumented population” is a “small but critical role in the workforce.” The report’s data shows that in construction, 12% or 18,500 workers are illegal aliens and in the “accommodation and food” industry, 10% or approximately 13,122 workers are illegal aliens.
Boyd is a named memeber of the PNAE.
Consistent with PNAE’s Tennessee report, Boyd’s donation to Conexion Americas also helped illegal aliens in Tennessee secure employment:
Large numbers of undocumented immigrants in Tennessee have also managed to overcome licensing and financing obstacles to start small businesses. In 2014, an estimated 10.3 percent of the state’s working-age undocumented immigrants were selfemployed — meaning Tennessee was the unique state where unauthorized immigrants boasted higher rates of entrepreneurship than either legal permanent residents or immigrant citizens of the same age group. Almost 11,000 undocumented immigrants in Tennessee were self-employed in 2014, many providing jobs and economic opportunities to others in their community. Undocumented entrepreneurs in the state also earned an estimated $244.3 million in business income that year.
Soto confirmed that the immigration status of its kitchen entrepreneurs, is not relevant. Nevertheless, her Nashville organization provides services and advocacy for illegal aliens consistent with the positions and goals of the National Council of La Raza (La Raza), an organization she continues to lead as chairman of the board and of which Conexion is a named affiliate.
Soto, a board member of Boyd’s education non-profit Complete Tennessee and her own education project Tennessee Education Equity Coalition (TEEC), have an interlocking relationship. TEEC says that students who arrived in Tennessee in violation of U.S. immigration law deserve “educational equity.”
When he first decided to run for governor, Boyd said he’d spend whatever it takes to win. At the time he also described himself as a political moderate:
I’m probably the most hated, disrespected, untolerated political entity in existence… I’m a moderate.
Early on in his campaign, in a side-by-side comparison, it was hard to distinguish Boyd from Karl Dean, one of the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Boyd is now spending some of his cash trying to convince voters that he’s tough on immigration and committed to enforcing the law.
Haslam made the same promises when he was campaigning for governor and even promised to “cut off the supply of jobs going to illegal immigrants.”
From the numbers, it doesn’t appear that Haslam had much success making good on his campaign promises and that was without Boyd’s interconnectedness with Conexion Americas and PNAE, both well-funded advocates for illegal aliens.
