Hate flows both ways in immigrant fight

Salazar, Tancredo receive vitriol via mail for their stands

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 5, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

More stories »

WASHINGTON - "Poisonous," sometimes racist messages have poured into Sen. Ken Salazar's office since he has taken a more outspoken role backing a controversial guest-worker plan.

As senators continued haggling Tuesday over contentious immigration-reform legislation, Salazar, D-Denver, took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to call for civility in the debate.

Salazar, one of only three Hispanic senators, said hate-filled attacks have been among the barrage of lobbying calls, letters and e-mails his office has received in recent days.

"I am not a racist against Mexicans - I want all minorities kicked out," one message said.

Salazar said that another message told him: "Put all the illegal aliens on trains and deport them out of the country. They come in vans. Rail cars would be a step up."

Another e-mail said that Salazar should "go back to Mexico," even though his family has been here for centuries and helped settle the New Mexico capital of Santa Fe before the U.S. was a country.

"The kind of debate that is going on, especially in some places in America, is a debate that's very vitriolic and very poisonous," Salazar said. "It serves to divide our country as opposed to unite our country."

Members of congress have faced intense lobbying from groups on both sides of the debate as the Senate prepares to vote on a version of immigration reform that goes beyond the enforcement-only approach approved in the House of Representatives.

Salazar backs a plan to grant legal status to millions of illegal workers, and eventually allow them to apply for citizenship after paying fines, back taxes, learning English and passing background checks.

Critics claim the plan, based on a bill by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., is "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.

Various groups, including the Team America PAC founded by Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Littleton, have urged "amnesty" opponents to flood Senate offices with calls and e-mails.

The debate has elevated Tancredo to national prominence in recent weeks, and he has gotten his own hateful calls and letters accusing him of being a xenophobe, racist or white supremacist, spokesman Will Adams said Tuesday.

"The classic tactic of those who don't want to engage in a real argument is to call their opposition by nasty names," Adams said. "Certainly, Sen. Salazar's office - and our office, frankly - have received a number of racist, hateful phone calls, calling us names. . . . But certainly, the majority of calls and faxes and attacks Sen. Salazar received were not hate-filled. They were directed at his policy because he stands outside of the opinion of a majority of Coloradans and a majority of Americans."

sprengelmeyerm@SHNS.com.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News