Thinkprogress:
Our guest blogger is Henry Fernandez, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress focusing on state and municipal policy.
Tom Tancredo, the only candidate for president from either party to declare himself in opposition to legal immigration, and to have a specific aversion to Mexican immigration, dropped out of the presidential race last week. Then he did something quite odd — he endorsed Mitt Romney, the only candidate whose father was born in Mexico and whose family made use of the porous border to immigrate between Mexico and the United States.
Tancredo made his endorsement because he was enamored by Romney’s recent — apparently hypocritical — conversion on immigration. Romney has been running ads across Iowa decrying what he now believes is the horrible impact of “illegal immigrants.”
Well here’s a little fact check for Tancredo.
Mitt Romney’s father George was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907, the son of Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt. Three generations of Romneys lived in Mexico because Miles Park Romney, a polygamist, moved the family there in 1884 as it became increasingly clear that the U.S. government would not tolerate polygamy in the Utah Territory. The 1882 Edmunds Act stripped polygamists of the basic rights of U.S. citizenship, denying them the right to vote, serve on juries or hold office. Not dissimilar to current immigration raids, U.S. federal agents hunted and arrested polygamists. Polygamists were forced to leave the country or risk jail.
Let's look at the other Presidential candidates and their ancestries...
GOP:
Rudolph Giuliani was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents Harold Angel Giuliani, and Helen C. D'Avanzo, both children of Italian immigrants
John McCain was born on August 29, 1936 in Panama at the Coco Solo Air Base in the then American-controlled Panama Canal Zone to Admiral John S. "Jack" McCain, Jr. and Roberta (Wright) McCain.
Ron Paul was born in Green Tree, Pennsylvania, to Margaret "Peggy" Paul (née Dumont) and Howard Caspar Paul, the second son of a German immigrant.
Tancredo was born in Denver, Colorado to Adeline Lombardi and Gerald Tancredo. Both sets of his grandparents immigrated from Italy.
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton's father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a son of Welsh and English immigrants and operated a small but successful business in the textile industry. Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell, of English, Scottish, French Canadian, Welsh, and possibly Native American descent and was a homemaker.
Barack Obama born to a Kenyan father and an American mother.
Chris Dodd was born in Willimantic, Connecticut. His parents were Grace Mary Dodd née Murphy and U.S. Senator Thomas Joseph Dodd; all eight of his great-grandparents were born in Ireland.
Mike Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Marie Bourassa and Alphonse Gravel, a painting contractor.
Dennis Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 8, 1946, as the eldest of the seven children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich. His father, a truck driver, was of Croatian ancestry; his Irish American mother was a homemaker.
By ancestry, Bill Richardson is three quarters Mexican and a quarter American
1 comment:
Wow SPB this is great. I don't think any candidate should talk about immigration with the background. Some of the candidates parents never became became American citizens but their children were natural born Americans. Some candidates were born in other countries and some like Fred and Hunter have questions that should be kept in the closet. Now I did notice Hillary has an Indian as a relative well she can claim that family member as a reason to become President.
Now Tancrazy has an interesting background that means more then what he's saying.
Both sets of his grandparents immigrated from Italy. Notice how it's not said if his parents were born in the USA or not. Somewhere in Tancrazy's family tree is a Spanish immigrant who Tom knows and dislikes. Well at lease we know God knows the truth that Tom is hiding.
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