Deal or No Deal

October 9th, 2009

For years, we and allies such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have documented the not surprising fact that many of the most prominent anti-immigrant voices in this country cut their teeth in other anti-ethnic movements. 

And, at the very least, many anti-immigrant leaders seem profoundly unenlightened when it comes to race and ethnicity in America.  Take Nathan Deal, congressman and Republican candidate for governor in Georgia, who over the weekend lamented that "ghetto grandmothers" had almost derailed his plans to make sure that undocumented immigrants continue to be prevented from receiving any federal health care benefits (see video below).  This week, Deal made one of those defiant "sort of not really" apologies a la Joe Wilson which basically implied that he got carried away in his zeal to protect us all from undocumented immigrants.  FUN FACT:  The 2006 amendment Deal's referring to in the video resulted in a multimillion dollar, multistate effort that netted a grand total of eight-yup, eight-people who were ineligible for benefits.