Tom Tancredo silenced, cancels trip

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4832611

Threats force Tancredo to cancel Miami trip
by Anne C. Mulkern
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated:12/13/2006 01:00:04 PM MST

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., has cancelled a visit Thursday to Miami, which he recently called "a third-world country" because of its large immigrant population. (Post)Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo has cancelled his visit to Miami on Thursday because of threats he has received, according to CBS News in Miami.

Tancredo, a Republican from Littleton, was scheduled to make a speech, entitled "Renewing America: The Need for Assimilation", to the Key Biscayne Rotary Club in Miami.

But the restaurant where Tancredo was to speak said today it didn't want him to appear on Thursday. The restaurant said some of the staff objected to working the party.

The Rotarians invited Tancredo to speak to them after he criticized Miami by calling it "a third-world country" because of the large number of immigrants living there.

He said that immigrants who came to Miami, both legal and illegal, have not learned English and live in insular communities with high crime rates and low high school graduation rates. That has made parts of the city and surrounding areas like a Third World country, he said.

Tancredo first made the Third World country remark last month while visiting southern Florida. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, among others, criticized Tancredo by saying, "What a nut."

Tancredo picked the Rotary Club among other invitations to come to Miami because the club agrees with him about conditions in Miami, said Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa.

The Rotary Club did not respond to a reporter's message.

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But the restaurant where Tancredo was to speak said today it didn't want him to appear on Thursday. The restaurant said some of the staff objected to working the party.

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Who's in control of this restaurant? the illegals or the owner? (probably the same)

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But the restaurant where Tancredo was to speak said today it didn't want him to appear on Thursday. The restaurant said some of the staff objected to working the party.

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I wonder why the wait staff would object? I guess Tom is right about Miami.

There may be more to this than some upset employees. Could be a security issue.
I recently asked someone who frequents Florida about Miami and was told it 'is like being in a foreign country.' And I've heard others from Florida say similar things. Tom speaks the truth, he isn't afraid to, unlike most politicians.

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Tancredo first made the Third World country remark last month while visiting southern Florida. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, among others, criticized Tancredo by saying, "What a nut."

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Jeb Bush should know about nuts shouldn't he?

I live in Miami and it is a third world country in my eyes. When people come up to you speaking only Spanish or when you go to a grocery store and say excuse me and they stare at you it shows that they don't respect this country or the rest of us. What annoys me is that when I turn around and speak Russian in front of them as they are not speaking English, they give me dirty looks and they do the same to French Canadians who speak French. Then you have them selling water, soda, and flowers on street corners. They county bylaw officers are constantly after some of them as you need a permit to do so and have to follow rules.
As for the restaurant staff, most likely many are Hispanic and don't want to look bad in their community. Another two facts are that many restaurants and clubs hire illegals, and many legal Hispanics have no problems assisting illegals from their country or a neighboring one.

To be perfectly honest with you this would have also been a security nightmare for police. It would be similar to the security for a presidential visit due to him voicing his opinion. You would require the restaurant be check by bomb sniffing dogs, police escorts everywhere he went, possible road closures and police screening at the restaurant. Then you would need police present at the areas where the protesters are to avoid clashes with those who disagree with them. Then you would have aviation up observing everything and Marine Patrol as the restaurant is accessible by boat. This would be a great expense to the taxpayers but even so to me it would have been worth hearing him.

Perhaps Tencredo should think about having a telecon. He could still get his message across.

I agree Swatchick, I hadn't been in Miami for over 20 years and when I was there a few months ago it was like a third world country.

Well this only goes to show what these illegals are causing our country to become, this only strengthens and confirms what Tom said about Miami being a "third world country."

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Originally Posted by jean

There may be more to this than some upset employees. Could be a security issue.
I recently asked someone who frequents Florida about Miami and was told it 'is like being in a foreign country.' And I've heard others from Florida say similar things. Tom speaks the truth, he isn't afraid to, unlike most politicians.

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I agree Jean. Tom has been threatened for years, but that has never stopped him. IMO there must have been a serious threat or a significant security issue.

It's just as well. If you were them, would you want to eat the food? I'm sure it would have been tampered with.

Death threat: Tancredo cancels Miami speech
'What is more 'Third World country' than threatening to bomb the place?'

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Posted: December 13, 2006
6:13 p.m. Eastern

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=53364

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com



Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

MIAMI – U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., whose comment to WND that Miami was a "Third World country" sparked a war of words with Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush, has canceled a planned speech in this South Florida city.

"What is more 'Third World country' than threatening to bomb the place?" Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa told WTVJ-TV, in reference to bomb threats for this week's event at the Miami Rotary Club.

The local CBS affiliate reported: "The manager of the restaurant where Tancredo was to speak, the Rusty Pelican on Key Biscayne, said Wednesday that the owners didn't want him to appear on Thursday in order to keep up the integrity and reputation of the business. The manager also said staff members objected to working the party where his immigration talk was supposed to be held, some customers threatened to boycott the restaurant, and the restaurant had received bomb threats."

Tancredo's office is still considering whether or not he'll come to Miami at all because his office has also received death threats.

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country," Tancredo told WND in a Nov. 19 story as he lamented how the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration. "You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

Gov. Bush then responded with a letter addressed to Tancredo's Washington office that, ''The bottom line is Miami is a wonderful city filled with diversity and heritage that we choose to celebrate, not insult. Miami has been my home for years and I am looking forward to returning there in January.''

"Florida, like America itself, attracts people from many places, and immigrants always bring diverse cultures, races, and religious beliefs to our shores," Tancredo wrote back to Bush. "It is precisely because of these diverse origins, cultures and languages that Florida and America depend on a few things to hold us together. One of the most important things that contributes to cohesion and not fragmentation is the English language and the evidence suggests that this is something that fewer and fewer Miamians share."

He also said it's apparent fewer and fewer residents of that city even think of themselves as Americans.

"This fact was noted recently by Lisandro Perez who was identified in a TIME magazine article as 'a Cuban-born immigrant and head of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.' He was quoted as extolling the virtue of Miami as a city where 'there is no pressure to be an American,'" Tancredo wrote.

"I certainly understand and appreciate your need and desire to try and create the illusion of Miami as a multiethnic 'All American' city," he said. "However, it is neither naïve nor insulting to call attention to a real problem that cannot be easily dismissed through politically correct happy talk."

"Do you not worry that Miami's 'sanctuary city' rules serve as a magnet for illegal aliens and undercut the state's otherwise sound law enforcement policies? Do you worry that a recent random community survey on 'Miami values' found that corruption was listed as the number one 'value' by residents?

"Governor with all due respect, I have simply said something most people – even in Florida if our calls and e-mails are a measurement of sentiment – believe is true. I have no doubt that people of wealth can still lead a comfortable and pleasant life in Miami, but ask yourself why ordinary middle class citizens are leaving in such high numbers," Tancredo said.

I saw on this evenings news that he said that some people think that they are back home and don't believe in freedom of speech. I tried to find the story on line but was unsuccessful at this time. If I find it I will add it.
He is right on with that comment.

Here is the Cuba politics in our public schools:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16226283.htm

EDUCATION
Ex-political prisoner pens book about Cuba's `reality'Former Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares wrote his own book about life in Cuba as a counterpoint to two controversial children's books in school libraries.
By TANIA deLUZURIAGA
tdeluzuriaga@MiamiHerald.com
Blog | What a life!
Children loading guns, hospitals full of cockroaches and elderly people who live mired in their own filth. This is the real Cuba, according to a new children's book written by Armando Valladares.

The prominent poet and author who spent 22 years as one of Fidel Castro's political prisoners was in Miami on Tuesday to introduce his new book, Los Niños de Cuba.

''I don't think there's anyone more qualified than a world-renowned author,'' state Rep. David Rivera said at a press conference in a Miami restaurant. ``Parents should take note of this.''

Intended for children 7 years and older, Valladares' book is a response to the Miami-Dade school controversy surrounding two children's books, Vamos a Cuba and Cuban Kids. Critics say both contain omissions and inaccuracies that paint an unreasonably mild portrait of life under Castro.

''This is the truth,'' parent Juan Amador Rodriguez said of Valladares' book. ``This is the reason most Cuban exiles are here. This is the reason my daughter was not born in Cuba.''

Rodriguez, a former political prisoner himself, initiated the controversy about Vamos in April, after his daughter borrowed it from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary School library.

Urged on by Rodriguez and others, the School Board voted to ban Vamos from school libraries in June. A month later, a Miami federal judge ordered the book back into the schools, saying the School Board ''abused its discretion in a manner that violated the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.'' The ruling has been appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

Parents have asked that similar action be taken against Cuban Kids.

''The books in the school system are filled with lies,'' said Valladares, referring to Vamos and Cuban Kids. ``I believe it is criminal to lie to a child.''

Many in the Cuban community had objected to passages in Vamos and Cuban Kids that compared life in Cuba to that in the United States.

Valladares attacked those generalizations head on.

Where Vamos a Cuba asserts that ''People in Cuba eat, work and go to school like you do,'' Valladares said his book seeks to illustrate the real differences between life here and life there.

''The lives of children in Cuba and the lives of children in the United States are very different,'' the book says. ``They don't live, or work, or study or eat the same.''

The book -- which is written in Spanish, but is expected to be available in English soon -- explains that in Cuba food is rationed, that children are sent far from their families each summer to work on farms and that children have to join the military where they learn to shoot guns.

``In the United States you can criticize the government and the president and nothing happens because there is freedom of expression. In Cuba, you can't do anything without consequences and those that do can be taken to jail because in Cuba there is no freedom of expression.''

The passages are accompanied by photographs of people standing in dirty stores with empty shelves, children playing with broken toys and an elderly man covered in his own excrement.

Valladares, whose best-known book, Against All Hope, chronicled his 22 years in a Cuban prison, where he survived years of solitary confinement, routine beatings and watched his friends get tortured and die. He now lives in Virginia.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan named him the U.S. representative to the United Nations' Human Rights Commission with the rank of ambassador.

Valladares persuaded the U.N. to conduct an investigation of the horrific conditions in Castro's jails, exposing to the world the inhumanity he had witnessed.

Though Valladares disagrees with books such as Vamos, he said it was not his intention to have his book appear in schools.

''It is up to the School Board to decide if it should be included in the school system,'' he said. ``I want to provide a resource to parents and children that educates them about the reality of life in Cuba.''

School Board members Marta Pérez and Renier Diaz de la Portilla, who attended Tuesday's press conference, said they would like to see the book appear in Miami-Dade schools.

Tuesday, Diaz de la Portilla sent a memo to School Board members proposing that the book be purchased and distributed to all 206 elementary schools.

''I think every student should have access to this book,'' Diaz de la Portilla said. ``I'm in favor of freedom of ideas and letting people grapple with ideas.''

Too bad Tancredo didn't pull up his boots and get it done.

There are always ways to accomplish the task and more than one way to skin the cat.

Not good, Tom :?

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Tom doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would cancel without a good cause.

If he is in danger, and death threats are not something to take lightly, I think he should always opt for safety.....I would hate for something to happen to a good representative....there are not enough of them as it is. :cry:

I was thinking this morning that he was coming tomorrow and I thought that there is no way that he should try this. I was very concerned about his safety.

Miami is far too unsafe for him to visit. It would be like putting Sheriff Arpaio or Mayor Barletta in one of the border cities of Mexico or George Bush in Bagdad. There are some things you just don't do for obvious reasons.

What Congressman Tancredo said is true....and if this doesn't prove it to be true then what does? I would like to hear what Jeb Bush has to say about his precious city now.....his precious city that is dangerous as hell if you dare to say that people need to come to America legally and learn to assimilate.

When an American is afraid to step out in our own country, we have seriously allowed things to degrade drastically.

This is the very thing that inspires worse problems, threats, etc.
By giving in over and over, we have all had a hand in allowing bullies to take over.

If one does not begin to stand up to threats, they will never cease.
And in a split second, he's lost his hold on a possible presidential run.
A leader can never be seen to retreat and continue to hold the position at the same time.

This is twice now that he's cancelled an engagement.

Americans must now make the decision to stand or to hide. To give in or to hold ground. There is only one way to take back our country and it isn't the backing down method.

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When an American is afraid to step out in our own country, we have seriously allowed things to degrade drastically.

This is the very thing that inspires worse problems, threats, etc.
By giving in over and over, we have all had a hand in allowing bullies to take over.

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Sis, I agree that things have been allowed to degrade this drastically in Miami. Remember the reaction of the people in the Elian Gonzalez case. There was an order by the president and attorney general at the time that Elian's father had the right to have his son returned to him. The people disobeyed that order up to and including the mayor of Miami !! Total disregard for that order to return him to his father.

Elian's father could not go to Miami either for security reasons....remember they had to have Elian returned to his father in Washington.

They do not believe in obeying the law down there if it does not fit their agenda and plan. It becomes totally "third world" when something happens that they do not agree with or support down there. They run their own government in their own way in Miami and obviously as we see again in this case it can be very dangerous for people to get in the way of their plans and their agendas down there. It's no wonder that no one can speak out about illegal immigration from there. It's no wonder all of the politicians in this area are too afraid to speak out. It's no wonder that things have deteriorated to this degree.

This is all an example of how true Congressman Tancredo's comments were and are.

But I do not think that Tom Tancredo should have to jeapardize his safety and well-being to stand up for what is the law in America anymore than you or I should have to. He has a right and an obligation to himself and to his family and even our country to do his best to remain safe.

What he is doing for this country is very brave and shows a lot of courage. I am very appreciative of all he is trying to do and very proud of him as well. But I am also thankful that he or his staff or his family put their foot down on this decision which could have subjected him to great harm.

We cannot expect people to have to do that. This is America. We need to be able to fight for issues and still be able to be safe.

Let us hope that those who need to recognize and realize what all of this means regarding an American Congressman being unable to move freely and safely around the United States is an indication of. It is bad news.

Let us hope that the situation will speak for itself and prove to many people that Miami is and example of how dangerous unmanaged immigration, illegal immigration and the failure for assimilation to take place can be for our country.

I heard that the City of Miami is investigating one of the death threats and it is the one that was sent to the Miami Herald. The City police department investigating the death threats is like criminals sitting on a jury for a friend. The city department is full of Hispanics in fact it is next to Hialeah when it comes to that. I don't know if it would be a fair investigation as you two types of Hispanics, the kids who are or want to Americanized and those who are stuck in the ways of parents who haven't and don't want to assimulate. Then you also have those who believe in the old ways such as some of the Cubans who ban books just as the leader who they fled from did. I think that the death threats should be investigated by the Secret Service or another department where personal views definitely will or may not play into it.