It seems that Texan politicians are in big demand to talk about immigration issues.
Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, put out a press release yesterday saying she was in Kansas last month (yes, you read that right.) She was there to talk before that state’s Federal and State Affairs Committee in favor a tough new immigration bill. After fear-mongering about drug gangs, she railed on “those who cloak themselves with pseudo-compassion and stand ready to take as much money for services as necessary to satisfy any want or need of any and all illegal aliens.” The Kansas senate took so much notice of her that they gutted the bill of all the bits she was raving about.
Meanwhile, Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, sent a sharply-worded letter yesterday to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, warning him not to waste the estimated $49 billion on a border wall when there was going to be a new president and congress in ten months. In it he reminded Chertoff that, in the 1850s, the Know Nothing party tried to ban all catholic migrants. He also had a humdinger for the party of Ronald “tear down this wall” Reagan, when he reminded Chertoff of what Mikhail Gorbachev said about the “muro de odio”: “I don’t think the U.S. is so weak and so much lacks confidence as not to be able to find a different solution.”
This article appears in March 14 • 2008.
