1. Fighting Crime
2. Protecting Consumers
3. Securing the Border
4. Protecting Children
Also, our opponent got in the AZ Republic today, AGAIN, on his use of 1. illegal aliens in his anti-immigration T.V. ad and then 2. use of a gilbert police car illegally.
Bill Montgomery, the Republican running for attorney general, doesn't know much about the men hired to play illegal immigrants in his campaign ad. He doesn't know their names, how they got to the set or why, besides acting, they also did manual labor that day. Most importantly, he has no idea if they were in the country legally.
The ad was filmed in a Gilbert town park on Sept. 12. Two men who were in the park that morning, a Gilbert park ranger and a Gilbert resident, claim the extras were undocumented immigrants.
But Montgomery, a Gilbert attorney who promises to crack down on illegal immigration if elected, said he had no reason to question the men's legal status.
Montgomery said the men were volunteers, recruited the day before by the film crew. Among the areas the crew recruited from, Montgomery said, was downtown Chandler, the site of a day-labor center.
The film company, Washington D.C.-based Red Sea, was paid $30,000. Representatives did not return repeated calls.
The morning of the shoot, Montgomery said, he saw the Latino men, whom he thought were helping out his campaign. But he didn't introduce himself. "I'm a bad campaigner," he said. "I didn't shake hands with everyone there."
David Waggoner, a Gilbert cabinet installer, was sitting in the park having his morning tea. He said he saw the film crew arrive, including a pickup with six men in the back.
"When you're sitting in the park and you're seeing a truck with six men hanging on for dear life, you know the driver of the truck is a contractor of some sort," Waggoner said.
Waggoner said he saw the men prepare the park for the shoot, helping to lay down tracks for a camera. Later, he watched them tear down the set.
During a break, the men were huddled around a "puny shade tree," Waggoner said, when he walked up to them and asked, in Spanish, if they were here legally. They told him no. Waggoner said one told him they were getting paid $50.
"What I really should have done is called the police right there," Waggoner said.
Montgomery said it was "convenient" that the park ranger's town report ended up with Goddard. He also questioned whether Waggoner was at the park that morning or whether he talked to the "extras."
"If anybody thought anything improper was gong on, they should have brought it to my attention," Montgomery said.
Waggoner said Montgomery should have figured out for himself that something improper was going on.
"He's running for Supercop," Waggoner said. If he did know the men were here illegally, "that's bad, and if he didn't know they were undocumented, that's bad, too."