Colorado Representative (and, I almost forgot, Presidential candidate) Tom Tancredo apparently had called on the Immigration and Customs Service to raid a news conference put on by Senator Dick Durbin because there might have been illegal immigrants there.
Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a Republican presidential candidate whose fierce opposition to illegal immigration is the center of his campaign, contacted the immigration service yesterday demanding that agents raid a senator’s news conference.
The afternoon event on Capitol Hill was held by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the leading sponsor of a bill that would give legal status to illegal immigrants who are high school graduates, if they attend college or serve in the United States military for two years. The bill is scheduled to come up for an important procedural vote in the Senate this morning.
Mr. Tancredo announced yesterday morning that he had contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency, calling for the arrest of illegal immigrants he said would attend the news conference.
“If we can’t enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?” Mr. Tancredo said in a statement.
As far as the article indicates and as far as I can determine, there was pretty much zero evidence that any illegal immigrants actually in attendance at the press conference. Without such evidence, of course, a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement would have most likely been illegal.
No doubt the irony of this escapes Mr. Tancredo.
