Tom Tancredo is a smart guy. He knows that by reporting illegal aliens to the INS based on their media sob stories it will get these criminals to think twice about using the media as a tool to circumvent our immigration laws.
Just dropped in to make a comment. I read the original article and had all the same reactions: the height of arrogance on their part. 5 years in the country, Americans forced to pay for their children's education (cha-ching! For breaking U.S. law, you get 5*5000=$20000 / kid!), and then they say: we want more. We want your colleges, too. It wasn't that long ago that most Americans didn't go to college.
But I agree with Dick Lamm that this is a personally risky thing for Tancredo. You can be sure that any actual deportation will be accompanied by tearful scenes of mama and sons being dragged away by evil white INS guys, with their two "citizen" children screaming at her side (Why can't we stay! Why can't we stay!).
Tancredo had better be ready to forcefully make a lot of good points:
- why does this kid get to go to college while Mr. Boosh is putting real U.S. citizens in the line of fire?
- What the hell has this family ever done for the U.S. except Take, Take, Take?
- Why should we accord them the benefit of the laws (like in-state resident tuition) when they have broken every other law of the United States that stood between them and what they want?
There was a Governor of Arizona named Howard Pyle who sent the Arizona DPS to arrest all the polygamists in the Utah-Arizona border town of Short Creek, now called Colorado City. A reporter went along. The resulting photographs of old men and their 10 wives being herded into police vans destroyed Pyle's career. Even now, the Governor of Utah, Mike Leavitt, under pressure from women's groups and the image conscious Mormon Church is going after polygamists like Tom Green. It's not going over well. The Salt Lake papers are rightly asking - is this law enforcement or persecution? Whatever your opinion, this is the sort of publicity problem people run. In the case of Tom Green, O'Reilly helped cook his goose in the court of public opinion. If Tancredo cannot get public opinion on his side, he will end up looking like the big bad meanie.
My opinion is that his best bet would be to put the onus on the Apodaca's: turn up the heat enough to where they leave voluntarily, and we get stories about how young Jesus has enrolled in a Mexican university.
Barring that, the Mexican consulate and Reconquista Front scum will use this as an opportunity for agitation and demands for amnesty.