Trip to Arizona a jab at mayor’s ban
Immigrant groups are asking a local talk-radio station to apologize for promoting a Phoenix giveaway that it launched after Columbus’ mayor suspended city travel to Arizona to protest its new immigration law.
WTVN-AM (610) promoted the giveaway as a trip to Phoenix “where Americans are proud and illegals are scared.”
The contest, which ended last night, was designed to capitalize on the maelstrom kicked up by Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s decision, said WTVN program director Mike Elliott.
It was the most popular the station has had, he said. About 5,000 people entered the drawing for round-trip airfare to Phoenix, hotel accommodations, a “few pesos” and the opportunity to “spend a weekend chasing aliens and spending cash in the desert.”
The station encouraged Columbus city employees to enter.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a law in April that allows local police to ask for immigration documents if they stop or detain someone they reasonably suspect is in the country illegally.
At a news conference yesterday, Reform Immigration for America called the promotion insensitive and offensive and said it inferred a racial bias. The group supports providing documents to immigrants already living in the country without permission.
Jose Luis Mas, chairman of the Ohio Hispanic Coalition, said at the news conference that the station was inviting the contest winner to “spend a weekend hunting human beings.”
“I think it’s an attack on the immigrant community,” said Cristina Villacinda-Farr, a 40-year-old Dublin resident who came to the states 20 years ago from Venezuela and became a citizen. Villacinda-Farr took issue with the promotion’s use of the word alien. “I am an alien, but not illegal,” she said.
Ohio Action Circle, a statewide blog promoting immigrant rights, sponsored an online petition to condemn the promotion that it said mocked the immigrant community, particularly Latinos. As of yesterday afternoon, more than 130 people had signed the petition.
Elliott said the station does not plan to apologize. He disagreed that the promotion contained racial overtones.
“It comes down to the word illegal for me. It’s not a race thing. It’s a legal thing,” he said. “If you’re breaking the law, it doesn’t matter where you’re from.”
Hey...no MAS illegals, por favor!