Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who is well known for his vigorous anti-immigration stances, is coming under fire for demanding that the INS deport an undocumented honor student living in Aurora, Colorado. Jesus Apodaca, who came to the US five years ago with his parents, was interviewed in a local paper about the difficulty he faces in affording college. When Tancredo heard about it, he called the head of the INS in Denver demanding that the family be deported from the US. Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who was in the area campaigning for Democratic candidates, called Tancredo “mean-spirited” and said his priorities are not those of the rest of the country.
Even as Tancredo was continuing his crusade to have Apodaca and his family deported, two undocumented immigrants told the Denver Post that they had worked on a job remodeling Tancredo’s home in Littleton, Colorado. According to the workers, all but one of the six-man crew doing the work was undocumented. Tancredo did not directly hire the workers, who were employed by a construction firm, and did not, a representative of the company says, ever inquire as to the workers’ immigration status.
Tancredo defended himself in an impassioned speech on the House floor shortly after the accusation, blaming the INS for the presence of undocumented workers in the US, and saying “it is not my job to ask them [workers]” about their status. The workers said that their statements to the Post were not prompted by Apodaca’s case, but came after they read about Tancredo’s immigration positions in a Spanish language paper.
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