John McCain promotes illegal alien amnesty to Irish group; Irish government link; no Barletta

Speaking at the Irish-American Presidential Forum earlier today in Scranton PA, John McCain promoted giving an amnesty to not just the supposed 50,000 Irish illegal aliens in the U.S., but others as well. The video is below, and per this he said:

"[There are] 50,000 Irish men and women in this country illegally who want to become citizens... we have to give them a path to citizenship... [My previous support for McCain-Kennedy] didn't make me the most popular member of my own party and it almost cost me the nomination of my party... To preserve that fragile coalition, I had to sometime take votes which were not popular... Senator Kennedy took votes that were not popular. Senator Obama took a hike... This nation is all the stronger -- this nation is stronger, this nation is stronger -- for the infusion of fresh blood and vitality that has come to this nation wave after wave: Irish, Italian, Poles, everybody who's come to this nation has enriched our nation, including our Hispanic citizenry. OK? That's what America's all about...

America is all about support for massive illegal activity and public corruption?

But, wait, it gets worse. According to this, there was no support evident for fellow Republican Lou Barletta, apparently due to his opposition to illegal activity. Instead, one of the other speakers at the event heads a group that's partly funded by the Irish government:

"Most of your parents and grandparents came here as poor immigrants and were welcomed here," said Ciaran Staunton of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. "Immigration is not a dirty word. Immigration is our fathers' word."

Of course, the report from Sasha Issenberg of the Boston Globe doesn't indicate where ILIR gets their money.

If anyone wants to do something about this, go ask McCain a tough question about this topic and upload his response to Youtube. If he's forced to foreswear against pushing amnesty it would actually help him, and if he or his surrogates were then able to attack Obama on this issue in a pro-American way it would help McCain and have a very negative impact on the BHO campaign.

Immigration2008a · Mon, 09/22/2008 - 11:46 · · Importance: 1