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.
No, he just called for media attention.
Live by the sword, then go to work for WND.
poll? PRND21: Ok
You must not have spotted the question mark at the end of the my comment above. I was asking you a question and you answered "Ok".
I said "OK" because you statement is false. I never said or implied such a thing.
I just pointed out that the results are absurd because Freepers are openly discussing how to vote numerous times.
Got facts to back that up?
Welfare is the staple of the Dem Party.
Work for new Senators in California and elsewhere.
And install your own damn stereo.
Keep reading, your missing a few facts.
Investigative work obviously is not your forte.
In have no poster boy, but Tancredo is far and above, better then most of the dolts in Washington.
Yet to see a fact from you, Inspector.
You claimed you have facts to exhonerate...facts that have been posted on FR.
Link, please.
What part don't you understand?
Welfare is the staple of the Dem Party.
Work for new Senators in California and elsewhere.
Cause and effect. Go after the cause...Dems.
Earth to Isolationists and Xenophobes!
You know damn well that’s a lie.
You claimed you have facts to exhonerate...facts that have been posted on FR.
No, I sated I have read all the articles on the subject and with those facts I came to a conclusion. I then stated that if you read all the articles you may come to the same conclusion. I never stated everything was posted on FR. FR is not the only place in the internet or in the world to get news and information.
Link, please.
Do your own investigative work.
I just had half a dozen companies bid on a job for me. I'm going with the low bidder. How the hell am I supposed to know what their hiring practices are?
Or should I just go with the highest bidder?< /sarcasm >
You must be talking about the Mexican illegal aliens who refuse to assimilate and who choose to live in their own ethnic enclaves here in the U.S. Those people are the true Isolationists and Xenophobes.
Actually, I don't really have a stereo - just an old record player, with huge unsightly speakers, but I can rig it myself.
I am not sure exactly what you post meant, but we might be in agreement as to welfare, although the REpublicans evidently like some forms - we have to admit.
Someone just called me a moron, I prefer to think maybe I am just not 'hep'. What is WND?
We will disagree probably on a lot of things, this to. The situation seemed to me the young man called for media attention to flaunt his illegality and the cruelty of the American people who want him to actually pay for that education as would any American from any of the other 49 states. It seems the congressman was as outraged at this as I was and simply called upon the proper authorities to do something about this confessed lawbreaker.
Do I think he wasn't trying to make a point - of course he was. A point I totally support.
I was answering someone's post that " he should check out the people working for a subcontractor, under a contractor as closely as he checked out high schoolers". My point being, he didn't check out the high schooler, he just used information published in a city newspaper to push the law enforcement agency to do what it should have done years ago and certainly when this person had the audacity to announce it to the world.
It doesn't change the fact that he's a hyprocite, though, does it?
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