Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
Tom Tancredo Hired Illegal Laborers to Renovate His McMansion
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
How World Leaders Can Reverse the Financial Meltdown
Dean Baker, Mark Weisbrot
Democracy and Elections:
Memo to GOP: Minority Homeowners Did Not Cause Wall St. Meltdown
David Swanson
DrugReporter:
LSD Cured My Headache
Arran Frood
Election 2008:
Maybe Now People Will Take Their Votes More Seriously
Bob Herbert
Environment:
The Meltdown We Really Can't Afford
Kerry Trueman
ForeignPolicy:
Obama Talks Tough About Afghanistan; Here's What He's Really in For
Anand Gopal
Health and Wellness:
McCain's Erratic Health Strategy: Now He's Slashing Medicare
RJ Eskow
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
Expanding Flawed E-Verify System Will Hurt Lawful Workers
Michele Waslin
Media and Technology:
Memo to Media: The Palin Rape-Kit Story Has Not Been 'Debunked'
Eric Boehlert
Movie Mix:
The "Battle in Seattle" and Beyond
Stuart Townsend
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Our Next President Will Transform the Supreme Court
Ellen Goodman
Rights and Liberties:
From Gitmo to the U.S.: How 17 Uighur Prisoners Could Be Let Into the United States
Andy Worthington
Sex and Relationships:
Why Everyone Loves Hot, Smart Older Women
Vanessa Richmond
War on Iraq:
U.S. Needs to Take in More Iraqi Refugees
Zainab Mineeia
Water:
Can the People Who Live in Coastal Towns Ever Be Safe From Hurricanes?
Lizzy Ratner
When Republican Representative Tom Tancredo isn’t railing against the “scourge” of illegal immigration on the presidential campaign trail, he relaxes in the 1053 square foot basement recreation room of his Littleton, Colorado McMansion. There, he and his family can rack up a game of billiards on their tournament size pool table, play pinball, or enjoy their favorite movies in the terraced seating area of a home theater system. Tancredo, who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by producing evidence that he suffered from mentally illnesses, especially likes entertaining his buddies with classic war movies.
“We have friends over and I have now shown Pearl Harbor about six times,” Tancredo boasted to the Rocky Mountain News about his 102-inch television. “But I mainly just show the attack scene because the sound is so good.”
When Tancredo hired a construction crew to transform his drab basement into a high-tech pleasure den in October 2001, however, he did not express concern that only two of its members spoke English. Nor did he bother to check the workers’ documentation to see if they were legal residents of the United States. Had Tancredo done so, he would have learned that most of the crew consisted of undocumented immigrants, or “criminal aliens” as he likes to call them. Instead, Tancredo paid the crew $60,000 for its labor and waited innocently for the completion of his elaborate entertainment complex.
During the renovation process, two illegal workers hired by Tancredo were alerted to his reputation for immigrant bashing. They went straight to the Denver Post to complain. Tancredo “doesn't want us here, but he'll take advantage of our sweat and our labor,” one of the workers complained to the Post on September 19, 2002. “It's just not right.”
The Post report momentarily threw Tancredo on the defensive. In a fiery speech soon after the story’s publication, Tancredo blamed his foibles on the INS. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many people I may have hired in the past as taxi drivers, as waiters, waitresses, home improvement people,” he boomed from the House floor. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many of those people may have been here illegally, and it is not my job to ask them.” Then defiance gave way to vitriol as the congressman dubbed undocumented immigrants, “the face of murder.”
Only days before the Post’s story appeared, Tancredo had personally reported an honor student profiled in the Denver Post to the INS because the 14-year-old was not a legal resident of the United States. The stunt forced the boy’s family to go into hiding. Fortunately for Tancredo, the ensuing revelations of his hiring of illegal labor fell below the radar of the national media, allowing his anti-immigrant crusade to proceed unabated.
Tancredo proceeded to organize over 90 anti-immigration House members into an informal but powerful caucus that has effectively prevented any non-enforcement related immigration legislation from reaching the President’s desk. His Team America PAC, which is chaired by right-wing pundit Bay Buchanan, has donated tens of thousands of dollars this election cycle to nativist candidates who hope to fill Tancredo’s caucus with new blood when he retires next year. Down on the border, Tancredo announced his support for the Minutemen, providing the anti-immigrant militia with a veneer of respectability while its pistol-packing members hunt for brown-skinned evildoers.
See more stories tagged with: republicans, immigration, conservatives, contractors, tom tancredo, illegal immigrants
Max Blumenthal is a fellow of the Nation Institute and a research fellow at Media Matters for America. The winner of the USC Annenberg’s Online Journalism Award, his work frequently appears in the Nation, the Huffington Post, Alternet, and the American Prospect. He is currently writing a book, Land of Sin, for Nation/Basic Books due out in July 2008.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »