Congressman Honda issues a statement in response to Republican Jason Chaffetz' demand for an apology. The following statement was posted by Robert Gehrke of the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday.
"The only apology that should be made is by Mr. Chaffetz to the American public for injecting extremism into a sensitive and serious debate on immigration. It is naive at best and disingenuous at worst for Mr. Chaffetz to claim that his proposal to imprison undocumented immigrants behind barbed wire would not incite resentment against ethnic minorities or lead to racial profiling."
"While Mr. Chaffetz's claims he does not single out any particular racial group, one needs only to follow the current national immigration debate to know that it is primarily targeted against people with brown skin," Honda said.
He points to Chaffetz's web site, where he said the Republican candidate focuses primarily on people with brown skin, specifically citing only statistics about immigration from Latin America and disparaging the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
"In our times, we need leaders who sensibly move our country and the public immigration debate beyond extremist positions that can foster racial fear and animosity," Honda said.
The Congressional race in Utah's 3rd district is off the charts. Congressman Mike Honda has jumped in and called GOP nominee Jason Chaffetz 'offensive and embarrassing to all Americans'. Both newspapers in Utah (Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News) covered it today and now it's hitting the evening news. Turns out Congressman Honda, Chair of the Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus, took offense to Chaffetz plan to round up undocumented immigrants and put them into tent cities.
"Jason Chaffetz's comments are more than just offensive and embarrassing to all Americans; they demonstrate a blatant disregard of the need to be vigilant in remembering the lessons learned from a disgraceful chapter in U.S. history,"
But it didn't end there. Honda continued to hit Chaffetz.
"Chaffetz's call for the use of detention facilities is an odious reminder of the Japanese American internment camps where my family and I were detained," Honda said.
Chaffetz has what I would honestly consider one of the most foolish, most bizarre responses I have ever heard.
"Where these guys are overstepping the line is saying that it has anything to do with ethnicity.
What? Nothing to do with ethnicity? He went on to say:
"If you're breaking the law and you're a fugitive, I want to go after you and put you in jail. I don't care if you're from Russia, Japan or Guatemala, it doesn't matter to me."
Honda finished with;
"Looking toward our future with our aging workforce, we need the contributions of immigrants, now more than ever," Honda said. "To the contrary, Mr. Chaffetz's comments serve only to fuel resentment towards targeted ethnic groups, and do nothing to promote the collaborative, industrious spirit upon which this country was founded. Chaffetz has intentionally used intolerance to promote his own political agenda."
His opponent, Bennion Spencer, chimed in;
"It makes me sick," Spencer said. "This is way off the charts. His position on tent cities does not fall into the mainstream of what people of Utah believe, it does not fall into the mainstream of what Utah is about. . . . We're better than that. We represent different values than that."
Thank you Mike Honda for standing up to the right-wing hate machine. Chaffetz has taken $5K from Tancredo's PAC. If you can spare $5 for the Democrat running there Bennion Spencer, Go here.