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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

Tom Tancredo Tells Us How To Run Our Border

Anything with the title "Lawmakers get hostile reception at border fence hearing" gets my attention because I can guess said lawmakers are usually Republicans. In the case of this article, the lawmaker singled out for the ire of the citizens was none other than Colorado Republican and all around unpleasant fellow Representative Tom Tancredo. Check this exchange out for a taste of Tancredo's wisdom:

Boos and hisses emanated from the audience for a congressional field hearing when Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado dismissed residents' concerns that the effort to build 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by year's end would damage the environment and destroy a centuries-old bond between residents on both sides of the Rio Grande.

Late in the five-hour hearing, Tancredo returned to a comment made earlier by panelist Betty Perez, a rancher and local activist. Perez said, "It really isn't a border to most of us who live down here."

Tancredo dismissed Perez's remarks as a "multiculturalist attitude toward borders."

As jeers rose, Tancredo added, "I suggest that you build this fence around the northern part of your city."

Oh those Republicans! They've got a mature and sensible solution for everything!

Tom Tancredo represents land-locked Colorado, a state that borders nothing but other U.S. states. In Republican logic, this naturally means that he knows better than the citizens of South Texas when it comes to border issues.

Representative Tancredo can pout about it all he wants, but Betty Perez's attitude represents many of the attitudes I've heard over the years in South Texas about the border ("El Otro Lada" or "the other side"). Temper Tantrum Tom may not respect it (in fact, I know he doesn't), but he ought to at least take that to heart instead of dismissing it in a hissy fit.

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