Posted on 07/19/2011 8:35:33 AM PDT by TomServo
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Hispanics nationally are stepping up their criticism, but U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks won't apologize for saying he would "do anything short of shooting them" to keep illegal immigrants out of America.
"I'm not going to back off because these folks want to resort to name-calling," Brooks said Monday. Brooks spoke after a week in which he was criticized by the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and two groups of Hispanic Republicans.
U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-Tex., urged Brooks' Republican colleagues last Wednesday to repudiate his comments. Those comments include Brooks comparing illegal immigrants to house-breakers as he defended Alabama's tough new immigration law.
At a town meeting in June, Brooks said he supports any measure "short of shooting them" that would force illegal immigrants back to their home countries.
"Rhetoric referencing acts of violence has no place in the discussion for realistic solutions to our country's immigration problems," Gonzalez said. "Words have consequences, and Congressman Brooks chose irresponsible words that reflect a hateful, dehumanizing undercurrent in the discussion on immigration."
The Republican group "Somos Republicans!" said on its website that Brooks "should apologize for his remarks, stop bashing immigrants, and instead work with his colleagues on a complete overhaul of our broken immigration system."
Another group, Arizona Hispanic Republicans, said Brooks "is no Christian Compassionate."
Brooks dismissed his critics as supporters of complete amnesty for illegals and said their comments are "traditional politics."
"I was speaking in hyperbole in order to emphasize a point," Brooks said of his "anything short of shooting them" remark.
He noted that the next sentence in his oft-quoted comment was, "Anything that is lawful, it needs to be done because illegal aliens need to quit taking jobs from American citizens."
"Anything that is lawful," Brooks emphasized Monday.
Brooks brushed aside questions about whether his remarks are a distraction in the immigration debate or cast Alabama in a negative light.
"They don't like Alabama or Alabama's immigration law," he said of his critics.
Brooks said his stand is popular across the country. He's been on media outlets in various places, he said, and was told last week by a Texas politician that he could easily win office in Houston.
Brooks and controversy are becoming linked. His Wikipedia page now has a "controversies" section. It details the "anything short of shooting them" controversy and the April flap that followed him calling some House members "socialists" on the House floor. Brooks withdrew that remark from the record after being criticized..
While the critics of the republican are carping on his “anything short of shooting them” comment, the Messican illegal aliens, the Central American illegal aliens, and the Moslim trash Obama brought in - all are proving to be true T*rd World people. Their violent crime rates are astounding
Hispanics do everything including shooting, but they also kill with machetes, gasoline, ad nauseam.
It wouldn’t stop them. They will never be happy until we are all gone. Personally, I think it is long past time to set the Panama Canal Zone as our Southern border. There’s plenty of room in South America for Mexicans and the rest who don’t like it.
States have no power to deport illegals. None. Only the Federal government (ICE) can. And they don’t.
What are they complaining about? He said he doesn't advocate invaders in the US.
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