Arizona Congressional candidate caught in uproar for noting that Islamic jihadis want to enter the U.S. to harm Americans - Jihad Watch

Arizona Congressional candidate caught in uproar for noting that Islamic jihadis want to enter the U.S. to harm Americans - Jihad Watch

Arizona Congressional candidate caught in uproar for noting that Islamic jihadis want to enter the U.S. to harm Americans

Obviously Mercer meant those Middle Easterners who enter the country illegally from Mexico, not all Middle Easterners who come to the United States. And so the uproar is clearly a cynical orchestrated hit for political purposes, like virtually all of the shock and outrage that the Left generates for supposed "gaffes" by figures on the Right.

After all, why exactly are Middle Easterners sneaking in to the U.S. from Mexico? It isn't as if it's difficult in this Age of Obama for Muslims to get refugee status in the U.S. As Pamela Geller noted here: "Christians are in imminent danger across the world, and yet they are being refused refugee status, while Muslim refugee immigration goes on unimpeded. U.S. policy regarding refugee resettlement would shock most Americans if they only knew. The United Nations picks who gets to come to the U.S. as a refugee. The mandate of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is to determine which of the world’s huddled masses comes to the U.S. as humanitarian refugees. And predictably, this U.N. body is favoring Muslims. Christians from Muslim lands are being refused refugee status."

That being the case, it is more than passing strange that any Middle Easterners at all are crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico. And the fact that they do so does raise legitimate questions about their motives.

"Arizona Republican's 'Middle Easterners' comments spark debate," by Tim Gaynor for Reuters, August 29 (thanks to Trita Parsi):

(Reuters) - Remarks by a conservative Arizona Republican Congressional candidate that Middle Easterners' "only goal in life is to cause harm to the United States" have landed her in the midst of a dispute over whether the comments amount to hate speech.

Tea Party-backed Gabriela Saucedo Mercer, who was born in Mexico and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, won the Republican primary on Tuesday to run in an Arizona Congressional district that flanks the border in southern Arizona. She faces Democrat Raul Grijalva, a five-term incumbent, in the November general election.

Grijalva sparked the debate Tuesday when he circulated a video in which the Republican tells an interviewer that authorities in the previous year nabbed 25,000 illegal immigrants who were other than Mexican nationals.

"That includes Chinese, Middle Easterners. If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them they look Mexican or like a lot of people in South America - dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes, and they mix in," she said in the interview, recorded last year by WesternFreePress.com.

"And those people, their only goal in life is to cause harm to the United States, so why do we want them here, either legally or illegally?" she said....

Grijalva, a long-term opponent of the immigration crackdown, issued a news release on Tuesday denouncing what he called Mercer's "reckless hate speech" and urged everyone who endorsed Mercer to "withdraw their support immediately."

"This is not a he-said, she-said question of interpretation. Her comments are reprehensible and deserve condemnation from every quarter. Anyone who continues to support her campaign should be asked whether they want someone with her views in Congress," he said in a statement.

[Muslim Brotherhood-linked] Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim American elected to Congress, said he was "disappointed" in Mercer's "decision to inject division and fear" into the Congressional race.

The American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, a non-sectarian civil rights and civil liberties group, also weighed into the debate, slamming Mercer's choice of words, which it said "once again exemplifies the bigotry and racism rampant within the Republican party, and politics as a whole."

The nonprofit group called on Republican party leaders, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to condemn her remarks and "move away from the politics of hate and fear."

A call to Mercer seeking comment was not immediately returned on Wednesday. In comments reported by the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, she said the video was edited to be misleading and took her comments out of context.

"He (Grijalva) must be scared or something," the newspaper reported Mercer saying at a primary-election night party on Tuesday. "The tactics he's using to smear me as a racist are unconscionable."

Posted by Robert on August 31, 2012 5:56 AM | 7 Comments
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