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Monday, December 17, 2007
Talk radio hosts descend on Iowa to chat immigration
Just days before the Iowa caucuses, at least 20 radio talk show hosts from across the country will descend on the state to bring attention to the issue of illegal immigration on Dec. 27 and 28.
The event — at the downtown Marriott in Des Moines — is being hosted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s Congressional Task Force. The group seeks lower levels of immigration.
“Immigration, and the urgent need to fix our broken policies and enforce our laws, will not go away and neither will the medium that has championed the interests of ordinary Americans in this debate,” said Bob Dane, manager of the event.
One of the participants will be Roger Hedgecock from KOGO in San Diego. Hedgecock organized a similar event in Washington, D.C. earlier this year called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” to urge Congress to reject legislation that would offer a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants.
The legislation was later defeated in the Senate.
Key issue in South Carolina: immigration
In about a month, the political attention now focused on the early voting in Iowa and New Hampshire will turn southward, to South Carolina, a state with a proven record of helping decide presidential nominations.
Predictions are that among Republicans, immigration will be the key issue in that state.
“Both parties’ voters are angry, but Republicans seem to have found heir new social issue: immigration,” said pollster John Zogby.
Indeed, South Carolina has been “whipped into a frenzy” over immigration, said Greenville Mayor Knox White.
In a Clemson University Palmetto Poll in September, South Carolina Republicans ranked illegal immigration second only to the war in Iraq as the nation’s biggest problem.
“It is the biggest problem of the country,” said Roan Garcia-Quintana, a refugee from Cuba and now a U.S. citizen. “Our leaders have allowed us to be invaded.”
Garcia-Quintana is executive director of the South Carolina-based group Americans Have Had Enough, which, so far, has focused most of its criticism on Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who earlier this year was a major sponsor of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that critics complained amounted to “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.
“We’re going to make an example out of him,” Garcia-Quintana said. “We’re going to make sure he finishes no higher than fourth or fifth.”
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