Posted on 10/18/2009 9:59:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
DALLAS — For just $39.99, you can now dress up as an "illegal alien" for Halloween. Target is selling the costume made up of an orange jumpsuit with the words "illegal alien" written across the chest. The costume even comes with a mask of a space invader with big eyes, and a green card.
It's not a funny matter to some leaders with LULAC, one of the largest Latino civil rights organizations in the country. Immediate National LULAC President Hector Flores says the costume is racist in nature. Flores adds, "The costume, while clearly depicting a supposed visitor from space, can generate images as portrayed a la Lou Dobbs, with his inflammatory pictures of people crawling over the fences on the southern border of the U.S., or anti-immigrant."
Target's website states the illegal alien costume is only being sold online. The costume won't be online very much longer, according to Target spokesman Joshua Thomas.
Thomas told us by phone Friday afternoon they were made aware of costume Thursday through calls to its customer relations office. Thomas adds, "We went into the process of pulling it from Target.com. It takes about 24 hours. The costume will be taken down either late Friday or early Saturday."
Flores says, "I think that Target may be stretching its marketing regardless of its racial and ethnic implications. I plan to refer this matter to our national LULAC office and general counsel for their advice."
Target's spokesman counters: "It was never our intent to offend any of our customers."
Thomas says he doesn't know if the company had any gatekeepers who could have prevented this costume from making its online site. He says, "As a company, we will try to learn something from this and apply it down the road. There are times when we make mistakes and will do what we can to correct it."
“Immediate National LULAC President Hector Flores..”
Yo Hector,
Without your whine, I would have never wanted one of these. You are doing a great job at bringing sales to this costume company.
Yeah, well I’m offended by legions of illegal immigrants invading my country and turning it into a third-world hellhole.
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