The Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction held a meeting in Austin last night, and Congressional candidate Dick Day was there.
The Austin Herald, which had encouraged its readers to attend the forum, provides extensive coverage of the event in Immigration debate hot: Reform supporters rail against Welcome Center, Hormel at forum.
California Minuteman Ron Brantsner demanded that the Welcome Center be shut down:
The Welcome Center, a non-profit founded in 2000 to address “medical, social, community, legal, financial, educational and other needs,” was highly criticized, with Branstner claiming the organization receives millions of dollars in federal support.
“You need to shut the Welcome Center down,” Branstner told the crowd. “They’re getting funded from open border groups.”
One audience member demanded to know where they got information about the Welcome Center’s funding.
Branstner said he had researched it, but was not able to provide documentation at the forum.
According to a article published by the Post Bulletin early this year, the Welcome Center's annual budget is $256,000.
The Austin Herald's stenographer-reporter repeats Senator Day's bogus claims about spending time with the Border Patrol when he visited Arizona last fall:
Sen. Dick Day, R-Dist. 26, said he attended the forum because he believes it is an issue of concern for people.
“If someone looks at a crowd, you can tell how important it is,” he said. “It’s a big issue, and no one wants to talk about it.
“In Austin, for some reason, there seems to be some animosity against the Hormel Corp.,” Day said. “These companies are going to have to come forward.”
To learn more about the issue, Day said he spent three days with border patrol in Arizona, and that he supports instituting biometric cards — tamper-proof national I.D.s to prevent fraud and verify country of origin.
“The solution is to secure the borders,” he said. “It’s going to be a big issue in elections.”
Unlike the Austin Herald today and the Star Tribune last fall, Bluestem Prairie has actually contacted the Border Patrol to check the accuracy of Day's account. A spokesman for the Border Patrol said that Day did not travel with its agents nor had he contacted the agency for a ride along. The Star Tribune has never corrected its inaccurate report.
The Rochester Bulletin also reported on the forum. Once again, its headline frames the mission of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction as being against "illegal immigration" though the mission of the group is to limit legal immigration as well.
Newspapers are willing to publish MCFIR founder Paul Westrum's letters about reducing legal immigration, but seem unwilling to call the group anything other than "anti-illegal immigration." It clearly supports reducing legal immigration to 200,000 people each year. Is it any wonder the public is confused?
The PB article reports that Senator Dick Day attended the meeting:
Republican State Sen. Dick Day, who recently authored a plan to secure America's borders, has attended several of MCFIR's meetings in Austin because he said he supports the group's mission.
"I'm here because (illegal immigration) is a big issue in the district," said Day. "We should know who is in the U.S. and what they are doing here. I think its wonderful that a group of people is willing to talk about it."
Funny, but only a few weeks ago, the Mankato Free Press reported Immigration issue has faded in campaigns, and Dick Day was singing the gas price blues with Brian Davis. Will Day outflank Davis in the race to score with the GOP base? Will immigration trump energy in the September 9 primary?
In a budget cutting move last night, the Austin City Council slashed its contributions to the Welcome Center, the Austin Symphony and the Development Corporation of Austin.
BTW: Southern Minnesota's immigration reduction crowd seems to want to shut down something else. Ruthie Hendrycks, who was part of last night's panel, wants a Spanish-language radio station pulled off the airwaves.
For more background on some of the "experts" on last night's panel, see this backgrounder that contains information about panelist Dell Erickson and this one on the groups Westrum and Hendrycks lead.
Dick Day is as big a racist as they come. He was known at the State Capitol for his pandering to the anti-American Indian crowd. This bigot should be permanently retired from politics.
Ollie Ox says: Sounds like you want to throw a monkey wrench into his plans, George. Do you think you can find a gang of Republican primary voters in the first to retire his ambitions? Brian Davis has also pandered to the MinnSIR crowd on immigration . . .
Posted by: George Hayduke | August 25, 2008 at 12:24 PM