Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo says he’s going to sit out the Spanish-language GOP presidential debate on Univision Sunday. He tells Fox TV’s Brenda Buttner that the debate sends the wrong message.
“To whom are you supposed to be speaking in a debate of this nature?” “Remember that we are supposed to be talking to American citizens who have the right to vote, so you can inform the electorate.”
Tancredo says while some people may not know it, it is against the law to become an American citizen without the ability to speak and understand English. “So to whom are you speaking, if you’re speaking in a language other than English?”
When Buttner remarked that some Spanish-speaking people who also speak English still regard Spanish as their primary language, he responded, “That’s the problem. We should not be encouraging that. They are living in the United States of America. My grandparents, when they came here, they would not let my parents speak Italian. They only let them speak English.”
Tancredo says immigrants historically, even older ones, learned English because they wanted to become Americans. “That was their primary goal. There was no divided loyalty.”
“We are, unfortunately becoming a bilingual nation. You have to also wonder about loyalties. To whom are you loyal? Why will you not learn English? And why would we want to encourage that kind of phenomenon by doing something like a Spanish language debate for the office of President of the United States?”
Tancredo’s banner issue is illegal immigration. He’s been a staunch opponent of amnesty, open borders and non-enforcement of laws for more than a decade. The Colorado Congressman recently announced he will not run for another term in the House of Representatives, where he has represented the 6th district of Colorado since 1999. He has not ruled out a possible run for the U.S. Senate in the future.
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