So, how do you address illegal immigration SERIOUSLY without being called names? I don't think it's possible, and I don't think you're being fair to Mr. Tancredo.
Then of course Tancredo's bashing of Cuban immigrants is just further proof that isn't not about illegal immigration to him but all immigration, at least from countries where they speak Spanish.
"So, how do you address illegal immigration SERIOUSLY without being called names? I don't think it's possible, and I don't think you're being fair to Mr. Tancredo.'
Simple. You simply don't make it a "Mexico" only thing. The rheotoric that some of the more rabid illegal immigration advocates use is reminincient of the era when their was legalized discrimination against Blacks. The history books kind of ignore at the same time Hispanics or first generation Mexican Americans were being discriminated in identical ways. So when you here a Tancredo or whomever show up on TV saying "we should just send them all back to Mexico," those people are hearing things that were said back a generation or two ago to people that were rightfully born here and or came here legally.
I am just as law and order on illegal immigration issues as most here are and reject the amenesty non sense. The best track the anti illegal immigration folks should have taken was the national security angle and should have kept the killing of our culture (Ie the whiteness of America) out of the argument. They could have accomplshed that goal by focusing on the security angle. And plus they did it to coincide with an election year which to Hispanics that might be a GOP type voter, just saw it as pandering to the tradtional white base of the party, which the border fence being signed by President in October is proof of that.
Really the whole issue could have been signed, sealed, and resolved a few days after 9/11 and it would have had wide support accross the board. It really could have, but the GOP and Bush punted.
This may be naive, but I think Republicans need to reach out to Hispanics, so they really see us and not the way the media and Dems portray us. I belong to some Republicans women's club and they are way too "country-clubbish" for my taste. Nice people, but I don't see them working in the barrios.