"Why don't you let us do our jobs?"

Congressman Darrell Issa held a townhall meeting about immigration in Temecula earlier today. Special guests included DHS Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson and KFI's John & Ken. Hundreds of KFI listeners and other immigration reform supporters showed up.

The meeting lasted an hour and a half and the audio will probably be available soon. It would be a tremendous public service if a transcript were produced as well.

If you've heard the John Kobylt interview with Asa Hutchinson, you can imagine what happened and how poorly Hutchinson was received.

One of the people who asked a question of Hutchinson was T.J. Bonner of the Border Patrol Agents' union National Border Patrol Council. He asked Hutchinson, "Why don't you let us do our jobs?" Hutchinson's response mentioned the recent rule regarding Other-Than-Mexicans; Bonner replied that that was just a "baby step."

The AP's biased, lede-buried report is here. The final few paragraphs are the worst; they use "immigrants" when they should have said "illegal immigrants." And, the final quote from Hutchinson could have been spoken by an AILA spokesman.

Related: T.J. Bonner is quoted in "Customs chief denies link between more immigration arrests and Bush plan" saying that the Bush administration is in denial about the effects of their amnesty plan. As described in "Illegals acted on rumors of amnesty", Bonner was right. He's also quoted in this transcript of the 7/16/04 Keith Olbermann show "What homeland security?"

UPDATE: See also "Meeting on illegal immigration gets heated: U.S. official heckled; 'sweeps' return urged", which includes this priceless Hutchinson quote:

"The thing about the illegal population in the U.S., most of them work hard, they love their family," Hutchinson said to boos and jeers that quickly turned to cheers when he ended with, "but they have no legal status in the U.S."

Perhaps he's an AILA plant.

Immigration2004 · Fri, 08/13/2004 - 20:03 · · Importance: 1