Democrat Dave Mejias (daveforamerica.com) is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Peter King in New York's CD-3. The unattributed (not even a free email) site mejiaswatch.blogspot.com points out that back on April 30, 2006 he stood in solidarity with the foreign citizens who marched through our streets demanding rights to which they aren't entitled:

"Some politicians say they will support the [May 1] boycott. Nassau County Legis. David Mejias (D-Massapequa) said he plans to close his law office in Hempstead out of respect for the Latino community."

Mejias is the son of Cuban refugees, and thus has little in common with those who snuck over our borders or who overstayed their visas.

And, from this article with an unknown date:

As more and more Hispanic and Latino immigrants move to the suburbs and lack the ability to access transportation, a disproportionate number have been involved in car-pedestrian and bike accidents... That is why for the past several years, Legislator Dave Mejias has launched a drive to collect donations of bike helmets to be dispersed to various community-based organizations to educate and assist new immigrants.

There's no indication given of the legal status of those "new immigrants", but one might imagine that a large number are illegal aliens. The better solution would be to discourage very low-wage workers from moving to his area. Instead, Mejias wants to help them, which has the ultimate effect of helping their employers continue to employ them at low wages. If child labor were still an accepted practice, people who think the same way wouldn't want to stop it, they'd just want to give the kids nice lunchpails.

And, in the included picture he's standing next to Reverend Allan Ramirez. Mexico's local consul (Arturo Sarukhan) declared him to be a "friend" for his defense of the local day laborers. Ramirez also refered to Steve Levy's attempts to shut down day laborer flop houses as "ethnic cleansing". It's not known whether the picture was taken before or after those statements. Others involved in the bike equipment giveaway are: La Casa Communal, Marianela Jordan, Executive Director of Nassau County's Coordinated Agency for Spanish Americans ("CASA"), and the Central American Refugee Center.

And, you can see Mejias' stock spiel on immigration around the six minute mark of the interview WABC's Diana Williams did here. Although her questions weren't that bad, she didn't call Mejias on the finer points of what he said.

He says he'd give citizenship to illegal aliens who've been here for five years.

Five years? Not even Teddy Kennedy wants to go that quickly.

Let's assume that he just wants to put illegal aliens on the "path to citizenship" as long as they've been here for five years.

That will lead to people coming here illegally or overstaying visas knowing that all they need to do is keep their heads down for five years, and they'll be started on the "path to citizenship" by Mejias. And, it will also lead to illegal aliens getting fake documents showing they've been here for five years.

But, it may all be moot because the Senate immigration bill lets "guest" workers stay here at least three and as much as six years, and they can start on the "path to citizenship" after four years. Not really what most people would call "guests".

And, Mejias says those illegal aliens should pay back taxes. In fact, the Senate bill forgives 2 out 5 tax years, and in any case many of them will end up receiving a tax refund because of the EITC.

And, Mejias says those illegal aliens should go to the back of the line. That's also highly misleading. The Senate bill allows them to continue to stay in the U.S. *and* puts them ahead of those in other countries who've been patiently - and legally - waiting for their chance at citizenship.