Tancredo Wants U.N. Off U.S. Soil
@ 3:27 pm by Chris Good
September 23, 2008

A day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drew protesters in New York City with a visit to the United Nations, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) is seeking to build a movement to evict the U.N.'s headquarters from U.S. soil.

Tancredo, a backbencher in Congress who ran a short-lived presidential bid focusing on hard-line opposition to illegal immigration, has authored a bill that would direct Attorney General Michael Mukasey to seize all U.N. property if the organization does not vacate its New York City headquarters and leave the country. The federal government, under Tancredo's bill, would then sell the seized property and use proceeds to pay down the U.S. national debt.

"The U.N.'s continued presence in the United States is an embarrassment to our nation, and the time has come for this ineffective organization to hit the road," Tancredo said today in a statement released by his office.

"I refuse to sit by while Americans are forced to host Islamofascist dictators, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so they can spew anti-American rhetoric just blocks from Ground Zero," Tancredo said, accusing the U.N. of coddling "dictators, anti-Semites, state sponsors of terrorism, and nuclear proliferators–while excluding democratic countries from membership and turning a blind eye to humanitarian tragedies around the globe."

Ahmadinejad drew thousands of protesters in New York Monday when he appeared at the opening of the U.N.'s fall session. The Iranian leader spoke before the General Assembly, warning that the U.S. poses a greater threat to global stability than Iran.

Tancredo suggested the U.N. relocate its headquarters to Tehran or Pyongyang.

Tancredo is retiring from Congress at the end of this year. His most notable success in Congress has been building the House Immigration Reform Caucus as its first chairman, serving in that position from 1999 to 2007. The caucus now has 111 members.
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/09 ... m-us-soil/