For the purposes of this post, I’m less interested in the actual fight than in how the Washington Post frames it. The backdrop is the escalating battle over immigration and reform between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. But let’s take a look at who the Post brings in to referee.

The two leading Republican presidential candidates have turned the GOP primary campaign into a nasty, week-long debate about illegal immigration, accusing each other of supporting efforts to give undocumented residents sanctuary from federal immigration laws.

At campaign stops, in radio ads and with increasingly hostile statements by supporters, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani are talking about little else as they position themselves on an issue critical to conservatives in their party.

“They are trying to rattle their sabers louder than the other and thump on their chests,” said Angela Kelley, the deputy director of the pro-immigrant National Immigration Forum. “Both of these guys are trying to remake themselves.”

The National Immigration Forum–referee #1. Who are they? Why, they’re a pro-“comprehensive” lobbying group that blurs the line between legal and illegal immigrants, that’s who.

We continue with the Post report, some back and forth between the two camps and their surrogates, and then arrive at a second group that Post brings into the fray on its own.

But Romney’s tough rhetoric about sanctuary cities is new, said Shuya Ohno, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. Ohno said Romney was “kind of a non-factor” in most debates about illegal immigration in the state.

“It’s only after he started spending a lot of time in Iowa getting ready for the presidential run did he really step into the public on the issue,” Ohno said. “It’s certainly much stronger than anything we heard when he was running for office here, and certainly much more polarizing.”

So what’s the “Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition” and why do they get the last word on this issue? Well, here’s a big button prominently displayed on their website:

Well la ti da: I’m pro-immigrant and I vote too. But “pro-immigrant” isn’t what they really mean. They’re another open borders lobby that blurs the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants and play up on emotion to shame law and order types into looking the other way on enforcement of this particular set of laws. They spend precious space on their site (in the upper right corner) slamming ICE for enforcing the law. Below that, a set of YouTube documentaries about the plight of illegals. Over on the left, links to about a dozen other open borders groups. It’s not real difficult to figure out where the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition is coming from.

So the two groups that the Post brings in of its own volition to referee the sparring between Romney and Giuliani happen to be open borders types. They’re about as fair and even on this issue as NBA ref Tim Donaghy. What, were NumbersUSA’s phones disconnected the day the Post was drafting this story?