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Chafee faces critics of TV ad about Hispanics

Members of the local community say the advertisement, aimed at Stephen Laffey and paid for by a national GOP campaign unit, makes Hispanics look like terrorists.

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, September 2, 2006

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Latino immigrant advocates confronted U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee yesterday for delaying denouncement of a "divisive," "anti-Hispanic" and "highly charged" television ad aimed at Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, Chafee's opponent in this month's Republican primary.

The ad came off the air this week. It was not pulled; it ran its course of 9 or 10 days, according to the sponsoring National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which supports Chafee.

The ad warned that Laffey's acceptance of Mexican consular ID cards in Cranston poses "a threat to national security." During a news conference outside Chafee's office, critics said it made Hispanics look like terrorists.

Governments issue consular, or "matricula," ID cards to show the bearer is a foreign national living outside his or her country. Laffey announced last year that Cranston recognizes Mexican and Guatemalan consular IDs.

The ad in question stated:

"The matricula ID card. Used by millions of illegal Mexican immigrants . . .The FBI has warned the Mexican ID cards accepted by Steve Laffey can be used to gain access to other documents, to get a driver's license, gain access to government buildings, board airplanes . . .Mayor Stephen Laffey accepts Mexican ID cards that can threaten our national security. Will he put our security at risk in the Senate?"

"I think this commercial is anti-Mexican," said Julio César Aragn said the ad conveyed a message that "all Mexicans are not good."

Chafee, who stepped outside the office to face his critics, said he complained to an NRSC representative this week about the ad, but whether or not it contributed to the ad coming off the air, he couldn't say.

"I'm not sure, to be honest," Chafee said. "I made my feelings known."

Chafee empathized with his critics, but attributed his delayed response to "the reality of independent ads," over which he said he had no control.

"I never saw it until it was on everybody's TV. I saw it when everybody else saw it. I had the exact same feeling, and once you get into stereotyping or any kind of zeroing in on any population, it's not fair," the senator said.

Chafee aide Stephen Hourahan clarified that the topic came up while Chafee was speaking with an NRSC member at his Warwick campaign headquarters. The senator "just expressed his opinion that the ad had missed the whole point and he was dissatisfied with it, and the person he was talking to had no control over the ad either," Hourahan said.

"If people thought this was an ad done by Senator Chafee or his campaign, that would be incorrect," said NRSC spokesman Dan Ronayne. He said an NRSC "independent expenditure unit" controls the content, timing and message, and Chafee "has no input. If he did, he would break the law."

But critics, who included representatives of the Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee, the Immigrants in Action Committee of St. Teresa D'Avila Church and the Mexican-American Association, didn't buy that. They pinned the blame on Chafee by noting that the ad was run on his behalf.

Senator Juan Pichardo, D-Providence, wrote a letter to Chafee a week ago, urging the senator to denounce the ad and try to get it pulled. Yesterday, Pichardo said, "The main point is we should not be portraying the immigrant community as terrorists -- it doesn't belong in Rhode Island."

Immigrant community ire heightened after Chafee called the ad "accurate" during a Saturday night debate broadcast on Channel 10 (WJAR).

Commenting on Chafee's complaint to the NRSC member, Pichardo and others at the news conference called it "too little, too late."

"If he felt that way, he should have tried to have it pulled in the beginning," Pichardo said, adding that the real focus should be on working toward immigration reform.

State Rep. Grace Diaz, D-Providence, said it's like being sick and waiting too long before getting a prescription. She added, "We are working so hard to make sure that [Anglo] citizens understand we are not terrorists."

The Laffey campaign weighed in yesterday as well.

"During the debate, Senator Chafee called the attack ad accurate, and now that the ad has run its course, he is conveniently changing his mind," said Laffey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik. "Rhode Islanders deserve a senator who knows where he stands, not a senator who keeps changing his mind."

Chafee likewise accused Laffey of a flip-flop.

"Three months ago, [Laffey] was in favor of consular cards," Chafee said. But now, "he doesn't call them immigrants any more. They're aliens. That's a flip-flop. He calls them aliens. That's the main point I want to make."

Not every Latino in the crowd agreed with the news conference sponsors.

Reynaldo Almonte, host of a Hispanic talk show on radio station 88.1 FM (WELH), called the matter "a political issue for Juan Pichardo." He accused Pichardo of trying to bolster support for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sheldon Whitehouse.

Almonte said he concurred with the government's assessment that the consular ID cards were subject to fraud.

"You can buy them on Broad Street and Cranston Street," said Almonte, who is from the Dominican Republic. "It's not an anti-Hispanic commercial."