Brat under fire for remarks on undocumented immigrants
Posted: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 9:30 pm
By MARKUS SCHMIDT Richmond Times-Dispatch
Rep. Dave Brat’s comments this week, comparing young immigrants brought here by their parents illegally and who are seeking to serve in the U.S. military to Islamic State terrorists, sparked sharp rebukes from pro-immigration advocates.
“These immigrants have grown up here and consider this the only country they call home,” said Edgar Aranda-Yanoc with the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations. “Any decision on their part to serve and risk their lives for this country should be honored and respected, not demagogued and used for political points.”
Brat, R-7th, toppled then-U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor a year ago in a GOP primary partly because of his tough position on immigration.
On Monday Brat told conservative radio show host John Fredericks that he was angered by comments by some of his colleagues in Congress that undocumented immigrants who want to enlist in the military are showing their patriotism.
“I wanted to stand up and shout, I mean, ISIS is willing to serve in our military as well,” Brat said on “The John Fredericks Show,” heard in Richmond on WNTW (820 AM).
The Republican from Henrico County also said that the practice of opening military forces to immigrants has toppled previous world powers.
“Part of the reason Rome fell is because they started hiring barbarians, otherwise known as the Germans at the time, to be troops in their own army,” Brat said. “What’s going on is the decline of western civilization at the highest level.”
The GOP-controlled House of Representatives last week voted down an amendment to the $612 billion National Defense Authorization Act — the annual defense bill — that would have encouraged the Pentagon to allow young immigrants brought here illegally by adults to serve in the military.
Under a 2012 executive order from President Barack Obama, those children — called Dreamers, after the DREAM Act — are excluded from deportation orders. Some states are offering them benefits such as in-state tuition, others want to allow them to serve in the military without fear of penalty even though they are not legally documented.
Pablo Manriquez, the Democratic National Committee’s director of Hispanic media, called Brat’s “heinous comparison” of Dreamers to ISIS the “lowest form of political buffoonery.”
“Hispanics nationwide are disgusted and Virginia Hispanics won’t stand for it,” Manriquez said in an email Wednesday. “Dave Brat should be ashamed of himself and his party should feel humiliated by the utter disregard he shows for his constituents, the state of Virginia, and intelligent political discourse everywhere.”
And Aranda-Yanoc with the VCLO said Brat’s radio remarks are an example of “the lowest level of political fear mongering coming from many in the House Republican caucus seeking to stall reform of our broken immigration system at any cost.”
Brat, in an email, sought to clarify his comments.
“Some House members made the argument that we should let illegal immigrants serve in our military because they want to. What someone wants is not enough of a reason to break the law to let them serve — we need to think about what’s in the best interest of our country,” he said.
“Take the ‘because they want to’ logic further: ISIS terrorists want to serve, too. Should we let them? Of course not.
“The point wasn’t as much about ISIS as it was that ‘because they want to’ is an absurd argument.”
Brat also said that last week’s vote marked the fourth time in “the last few years” that Congress has rejected allowing undocumented immigrants to serve in the military.
Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, who sits on the House Committee on Armed Services, did not specifically weigh in on Brat’s remarks.
But a spokeswoman said that the congressman has “consistently said” he does not believe the annual defense bill is “the appropriate venue” for addressing immigration law.
Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, D-3rd, had no comment Wednesday.
http://www.richmond.com/news/virgini...10c10ada2.html
