Immigration reformers not "true" republicans?

During a May 4 Washington, D.C., forum sponsored by the Latino Coalition, Representative Chris Cannon (R-Utah), a congressional point man for the Bush administration's illegal immigrant amnesty scheme, suggested that fellow Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo (Colo.) "ought to reconsider his membership in the Republican Party," reported Denver's Rocky Mountain News.

While Rep. Tancredo, like most politicians, has a lot to answer for (such as his puzzling support for the Iranian Mujahaddin al-Kalq, a Marxist terrorist group), his stance on immigration reform and border control has been sound and commendable. He has clashed repeatedly with the Bush administration over its proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants, and been pointedly rebuked by the White House on more than a few occasions.

By way of contrast, Rep. Cannon's relationship with the "Reconquista Lobby"--foundation-funded, open-borders groups like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and La Raza--is close kindred to treason.

In March 2003, Cannon helped create the U.S.-Mexico Political Caucus. In a June 6, 2002 speech to a gathering of MALDEF, where he received the group's "Excellence in Leadership" award, Cannon declared: "We love immigrants in Utah.... And we don't oftentimes make the distinction between legal and illegal."

On several occasions Cannon has accused his immigration-reform critics of being in league with eugenicists, neo-Nazis, and other despicable folks. Cannon plumbed similar depths of dishonesty during the May 4 discussion. "I don't think there's a place in the Republican Party for racism, for xenophobia, for ideas that are fundamentally un-American," groused the Reconquista Lobby's favorite Republican congressman. Referring to Rep. Tancredo, Cannon declared: "I think he ought to consider his views and decide whether they're consistent with the Republican Party."

It apparently hasn't occurred to Cannon that all congressmen (himself included) swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not the platform of the GOP, the policies of the president, or the whims of foreign lobbies like MALDEF. Agitating on behalf of abolishing our national borders may be "consistent with the Republican Party" as led by George W. Bush, but it's hardly consistent with that solemn oath of office.