Henry Fernandez lies about Jim Oberweis to support illegal immigration (libel?)

Henry Fernandez - a Senior Fellow at the Center For American Progress Action Fund who's also part of the Mexican government's "extended network" - offers "Anti-Immigrant Zealots Lose Hastert's Seat For Conservatives" (thinkprogress.org/2008/03/10/oberweis-immigration) about the recent Illinois House race in which Jim Oberweis lost to Bill Foster. The article contains this paragraph that strongly appears to libel both Oberweis and Mitt Romney:

Oberweis, a wealthy owner of dairy stores, was targeted by grassroots supporters of comprehensive immigration reform. They found he had the same problem as erstwhile Presidential candidate Mitt Romney - he employed undocumented immigrants while bashing them on the campaign trail. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and the Chicago Workers Collaborative uncovered Oberweis’ hypocrisy. According to Joshua Hoyt, head of ICIRR...

(Bolding and link added). The family-owned Oberweis Dairy recently sued the DCCC over a similar charge, but that case seems much weaker. In that paragraph, Fernandez is explicilty claiming that Oberweis "employed" illegal aliens, when in fact the Dairy had a contract with a cleaning company, and the latter either employed or hired as independent contractors the illegal aliens. And, since there was apparently never any kind of court case involved, the two illegal aliens in question might in fact be legal residents.

And, while I haven't seen any of Oberweis' campaign materials, I'd imagine that "bashing" was actually pointing out the dangers of illegal immigration.

Fernandez also fails to note that the ICIRR is linked to the Mexican government. He also only uses the word "illegal" once, and that's in a quote from someone else. In his own text, he doesn't use that word once and only uses "undocumented" once, the rest of the time involves lying:

the conservative anti-immigrant strategy. Oberweis is an anti-immigrant zealot... Oberweis' staunch anti-immigrant views... Many conservative politicians hope that attacking immigrants is a magic electoral bullet... anti-immigrant rhetoric...

He also lies about or doesn't understand what would be involved in dealing with the anchor babies issue; no such revocation would be required:

Oberweis calls for denying children born in the United States to immigrants the right to U.S. citizenship, something which would require revoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Immigration2008a · Mon, 03/10/2008 - 17:49 · · Importance: 1