A very apt summary of the situation surrounding President Bush's positions on Illegal Aliens.
Posted on 09/19/2002 3:34:04 PM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
DENVER (AP) - A congressman who has been demanding tighter immigration controls is defending himself against allegations that illegal immigrants remodeled his basement. Two employees of a contracting company say they and other illegal immigrants from Latin America helped install a home entertainment center and a bedroom in the Littleton home of Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., The Denver Post reported Thursday.
Last month, after the Post wrote about a young illegal immigrant's struggle to pay for college, Tancredo reported the teen and his family to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
On Thursday, Tancredo said that when the remodeling was done last fall, he never asked about the workers' immigration status.
Even if the workers were in the country illegally, "what is my responsibility at this point in time?" Tancredo said in a telephone interview from Washington. "I go to dinner at restaurants and probably have come into contact with people who are here illegally. I do not ask, of course. It is actually illegal and you can be sued."
The contractor, Creative Drywall Designs, and subcontractor Denver Audio Design said all their employees are in the country legally.
The newspaper said it would not identify the workers because they could get in trouble with INS.
Tancredo said enemies he made in lambasting the INS and in seeking strict enforcement of immigration laws are trying to discredit him.
"The fact is that I am a controversial figure," he said. "I have rankled the feathers of people who are immigration support groups and illegal immigrants themselves, so I am not surprised that somebody might make this accusation to embarrass me."
Tancredo called the INS after reading about honor student Jesus Apodaca and his family, illegal immigrants from Mexico who live in Denver. The congressman said INS officials told him they did not have the resources to try to take the family into custody.
Tancredo has pushed for use of troops to guard the borders.
"It is the government's responsibility to enforce our immigration laws, and if the INS were doing its job, no illegal immigrant would be available to violate our labor laws," Tancredo said in the Post.
I don't see employer sanctions ever getting enforced. Money talks and bulls**t walks, after all. I dropped a dime on a guy who was hiring illegals. One contribution to our local Democrat Congresscritter later, he was hiring again and the INS told me he was "untouchable."
As for regime change...we're about to change Iraq's regime whether they like it or not. Mexico shouldn't be more difficult--and it doesn't fit the definition of "miraculous."
If you ask as Tancredo formulated the question, it's a violation of rights. If you merely inquire as to the legal status of the employees, you're bulletproof, and his failure to do so boils down to "don't ask, don't tell," and his presentation of why he didn't ask ("It would be a violation of their rights") is Clintonian word-parsing at best.
BTW, it is ridiculously easy to find out who's using legal and illegal labor in the construction biz--just look at how much they bid.
This retard Tancredo couldn't wait until AFTER the election to call the INS on the family of illegals in the newspaper?.
Why is he so OBSESSED with illegal Mexicans, and not illegals from terrorist countries?.
A very apt summary of the situation surrounding President Bush's positions on Illegal Aliens.
Would that be more, or less Clintonian than the parsing needed by the Bush Administration to try and pass off Section 245(i) as anything other than an extension of Clinton's targeted Amnesty for Illegals?
Tancredo should have been more careful. Whether one agrees with his stand or not, he made a political mistake. Period.Even if every Hispanic in your state was Illegal, this couldn't be true. The numbers just aren't there. You're probably about 15 years behind the curve.
I wish there was some easy way for folks in other parts of the country to get a handle on the scale of what's been going on here for decades. You'd understand some of the intensity on this issue a little better.
From the article:
The contractor, Creative Drywall Designs, and subcontractor Denver Audio Design said all their employees are in the country legally.The newspaper said it would not identify the workers because they could get in trouble with INS.
This is a hatchet job on Tancredo of the sort you often decry when they're used to smear President Bush.
The question of the day is: Who planted it, the DNC, RNC, or the AP all on their own?
Someone willing to call a spade a spade?
That being said, it is also quite possible that this is nothing but a smear and without the actual names of people, it is impossible to prove or disprove. (And you are right..it is a New York Times-style anonymous source hit piece. I imagine from the Rats, although the GOP could possibly have done it. However, if the GOP were behind it, the paper would gleefully report that "Republican sources" had pointed them to the "illegal workers," giving the paper a double hit piece.)
Yeah, I really don't know who pulled the sword.
I'm not sure a GOP source would be outed though. Anyone with a regular dialogue with the AP reporter could have planted this "anonymously." Even liberal journalists wouldn't burn a regular source over something that hurts a Republican anyway.
Think of all of the "divided Republicans" stories such a source could help generate.
I don't think the Republicans are doing anything but distancing themselves from Tancredo's comments. It is up to the people of his district to decide if that is what they wish to support.
Myself, I rarely pay attention to Mr. Tancredo, and since he is not my representative and I prefer a more diplomatic approach to solving the problem of illegal immigration, I offer my comments with the caveat that I am perhaps slightly unsympathetic to him.
However, I do not like these kinds of hit pieces. I also don't like stupid politics, which is what Tancredo practiced.
For example, if I had made a big name for myself on my immigration stand, the last thing I would do is have any kind of contract work done where there was even the smallest chance that there would be an irregularity. Period. AND I would get some sort of a written statement to protect myself...OR I would wait to have the work done until after the election. In my neck of the woods, I would not have landscaping, roofing, or drywall done unless I could get a written statement from the contractor. Period.
It is quite possible that the contractor is telling the truth and the sources are fictitious. It is also possible that the contractor is lying, having been caught. It is also possible that the contractor has been lied to by employees with fake records.
The contractor could, I suppose, provide evidence of his employees legal status.
Tancredo is not without solutions to this problem, if he is smart enough to think of them.
I don't know. Go ask that honor student in Aurora.
Klancredo should check people that work in his home as closely as he checks high schoolers from neighboring cities.
In both cases he decided to fatten his wallet...cheap labor - mouth breather donations.
Sucker.
Honor student? That's a criminal foreign sponge, amigo. He needs to get the boot.
Klancredo should check people that work in his home as closely as he checks high schoolers from neighboring cities.
Your agenda is showing. Yes, he should check. In fact, I think all of 'em ought to be checked.... and deported promptly if they are found to be illegals. Of course dunce Apodaca and his 'family' (all with different surnames) were stupid enough to blab their criminal status all over the DP at the behest of the corrupt Mexican government in an effort to get Colorado taxpayers to subsidize college tuition for similar foreign sponges. Apodaca must be an affirmative action recipient.
Tancredo did not get burned nor is he in any mess. The accusations that were made against him were totally unsubstantiated. This is how they used to do things back in the Soviet Union. A Soviet citizen would be hauled before a court and basically told:
"Somebody has informed the court that you are working to undermine the Soviet government, but we can't tell you who made the accusation nor provide any proof to substantiate the accusation. But we find you guilty and sentence you to 10 years in a Siberian labor camp".
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