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Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Menendez doesn’t want to see Tancredo ad
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said Wednesday he was not interested in seeing the latest television advertisement by GOP presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado.
When asked about the ad, which warns that open borders are leading to the raping of children by Central American gang members, Menendez said, “I make it my business NOT to look at Tom Tancredo ads.”
Menendez’ response sparked laughter at an immigration forum hosted by NDN, a Democratic group.
In a speech, Menendez said that Republicans are “willing to use Hispanics as political scapegoats” and will lose big in 2008 because of it.
Tancredo’s ad, revealed Tuesday, focuses on Central American gangs such as MS-13 and shows bloody pictures of victims of gang violence.
It says that the gangs are now on American soil “pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives” and blames the violence on “gutless politicians who refuse to defend our borders.”
Tancredo caused a stir last month with another ad that linked immigration to terrorism. That ad showed a hooded man blowing up a shopping mall.
To see the new Tancredo ad, click here.
Democratic candidates discuss deportations, learning English
Democratic candidates spent much time discussing immigration at their latest debate, after National Public Radio decided to make it one of three themes of the exchange.
They covered a wide range of topics including the cost of mass deportations, whether to deputize Americans to enforce immigration law, and the English learning curve of current immigrants.
Here are the highlights:
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York: “What we’re looking at here is 12 million to 14 million people. They live in our neighborhoods. They take care of our elderly parents. They probably made the beds in the hotels that some of us stayed in last night. They are embedded in our society.”
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois: “We’re not going to deputize a whole bunch of American citizens to start grabbing people or turning them in, in part because the ordinary American citizen may not know whether or not this person is illegal or not. Now, we should be holding employers accountable…But, you know, the notion that we’re going to criminalize priests, for example, or doctors who are providing services to individuals, and throw them in jail for doing what their calling asks them to do, which is to provide help and service to people in need, I think that is a mistake. I think that’s out of America’s character.”
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware: “They’ll speak English. Like every other large wave of immigrants, once they are bond with the second generation, they’ll all be speaking English. What’s the fear here? Give me an example where that hasn’t happened.”
Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut: “I’m very worried about the fear and hate-mongers out there who are going to divide this country very terribly on this subject matte
More Clinton: “You’ll hear the voices of those saying, ‘Deport people. Round them up.’ That is absolutely unrealistic, and it is not in keeping with American values. The best estimates I have is it would take about $200 billion over five years to round up 12 to 14 million people. It would take tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of new law enforcement officials. It would take a convoy of 200,000 buses stretching 1,700 miles. People in America would be outraged at the loss of their privacy and the invasion of their homes and businesses.”
Romney fires contractor who hired illegal immigrants
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, ridiculed by rival Rudy Giuliani for employing illegal immigrants at his “sanctuary mansion,” said he had fired the landscaper for his suburban Boston home after learning for a second time about undocumented workers laboring on the property, the Associated Press reported.
Romney said in a statement that he had given the contractor a second chance and termed the recurrence of hiring illegal immigrants “disappointing and inexcusable.”
Romney has made the fight against illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaign.
At a Republican presidential debate last week, Romney and Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, traded barbs on the issue, carrying over a theme from the campaign trail.
Giuliani defended his policy in New York where police and local officials did not check the immigration status of residents using city services.
“If we didn’t allow the children of illegal immigrants to go to school, we would have had 70,000 children on the streets at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave,” he said.
Giuliani also accused Romney of having a “sanctuary mansion.”
In response, Romney said it would “not be American” to question the legal status of workers just because they “have a funny accent.”
