"He is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine," Trump said on Face the Nation on June 5. "But I say, he's got bias. I want to build a wall."
Our interest is strictly in this club that Trump referenced. Is it actually "strongly pro-Mexican" as he said?
The group in question is the California La Raza Lawyers Association. It dates back to 1977. The group’s immediate past president, Joel Murillo, told us that it was formed in response to stereotyping coming from judges and lawyers.
"There were judges on the bench saying people with Spanish surnames were prone to be savages," Murillo said. "When we tried to integrate with the mainstream bar association, we were denied. We were marginalized. The only people who were willing to work with us were us."
Murillo says the days of stereotyping are over, and the group now focuses on the professional development of Latino lawyers and encouraging students to pursue a career in law. He called Trump’s description of the association as very strongly pro-Mexican a "misnomer." The group has not been involved in the immigration debate.
The group’s bylaws state, "The purpose and goal of this association is to promote the interests of the Latino communities throughout the state and the professional interests of the membership." That membership is now about half Latino, Murillo said, and in terms of party affiliation, "the lawyers who belong pretty much reflect the population."
The conservative website Redstate posted an op-ed rebuking Trump’s use of the California lawyers group as proof of Judge Curiel’s political motives. The writer, Leon Wolf, called the effort to disparage the association "dishonest."
"As far as I can tell, they appear to be a pretty garden variety special interest lawyers association," Wolf wrote. "Every state has these chapters for Hispanic lawyers, black lawyers, women lawyers, Mormon lawyers, Christian lawyers, Jewish lawyers -- you name it, there is a lawyer association for it in every state."
Trump said Curiel belonged to a group that is very strongly pro-Mexican.
We rate this assertion Mostly False.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/07/donald-trump/trump-wrongly-casts-california-lawyers-group-stron/