Immigration Remarks Land Mark Kirk On A Condom In New Ads

A two-year-old comment from U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk suggesting that condoms could help reduce the illegal immigration of Mexicans to America is again an issue as the North Shore Republican campaigns for President Obama's former Senate seat.

Illinois Immigrant Action, a Chicago-based immigration reform advocacy group, is releasing a Spanish language radio ad Wednesday taking aim at Kirk for his 2007 remarks.

"I wonder what goes on inside the mind of a Congressman when he states that the solution for immigration is to send condoms to Mexico!," a voice says in Spanish as babies cry in the background. "Yes, he said that! I know it is hard to believe but Congressman Mark Kirk has suggested on the floor of the US Congress that the solution to illegal immigration is sending birth control to Mexico!"

The ad, which also knocks Kirk for his vote in favor of the 2005 "Sensenbrenner Bill" that would have made undocumented immigrants felons, centers on Kirk's remarks during a Congressional debate on donating contraceptives abroad. (Printed ads, in both English and Spanish, show Kirk's face on a condom wrapper.)

"A slower rate of growth of Mexico's population would improve the economy of Mexico," Kirk said then on the House floor, according to Reuters. "It would also reduce the environmental pressure on Mexico's ecosystem. But a slower rate of growth would also reduce the long-term illegal immigration pressure on America's borders."

It turns out Kirk's rationale wasn't exactly accurate. Reuters reported that fertility rates have been declining in Mexico over the last 25 years, with a 2.5 children per couple rate in 2007 compared to 2.1 in the United States.

IIA, however, seized on what it perceives to be Kirk's flippant solution for our immigration debate.

"Tell Congressman Kirk that what our nation needs is a workable immigration solution," the ad says, "and a path to citizenship for the undocumented."

Kirk, who is expected to easily win the Republican nomination for the seat, held a narrow lead over State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic front-runner, in a recent Rasmussen poll.

Listen to the ad:

Comments

[Hollis Brown]

Bye Bye Cook County, Markie boy!

[ProChoiceGOPer]

Democrats must be running scared if they are attacking Mark Kirk over comments made promoting birth control and family planning in general. Shouldn’t people instead be commending a Republican endorsing a common sense method to reduce the rates of unwanted pregnancy in general? Birth control is important and Republicans should be working to promote the use of birth control to help lower abortion rates instead of working to outlaw it or deride it, as so many in the Party do. As a member of the Republican Majority for Choice, while I think Rep Kirk’s comments were taken slightly out of context, I am glad that someone in the Party is talking about birth control as a common sense way to help families make their own reproductive choices.

[fiddlinElls]

Of course birth control is the solution. No one wants to say it, though. It's the solution for the family in Arkansas with 19 kids. It's the solution for low income families everywhere that otherwise might end up with four or five children.
Color, ethnicity, religion..­..are all non factors. It comes down to provision.
If you can't create a life of opportunities for your children, then don't make them.
Our border patrol intercepts 100,000 children a year.
If you haven't seen "Which Way Home" on HBO, I reccomend it. It will show you exactly why poverty stricken women need to quit getting pregnant. It will break your heart. There are kids right this second getting on trains to hobo across S. America and Mexico to come here. Thousands upon thousands, upon thousands.

[DelawareBob]

Illegal aliens have made America the dumping ground for all their illegal alien children, then we have to school them and give them free medical care.

I for one, am sick and tired of these ILLEGAL ALIENS snubbing their nose at our immigration laws and the many other laws of this Country. If our Federal Government can not ENFORCE our immigration laws, and get these ILLEGAL ALIENS out of this Country, then let the States do it! One way or another, an end has to come to this illegal immigration, and not with AMNESTY! Amnesty will only encourage more ILLEGAL ALIENS to invade our Country and reward those who broke our laws and raped the American taxpayer in many ways...dep­ressing our wages, taking our jobs, overwhelming our schools with their ILLEGAL ALIEN children, driving without a license or car insurance, all the crime from stolen identities to rape, drugs and everything else.

It's time for ZERO TOLERENCE with these ILLEGAL ALIENS. It's time for them get out of this Country and back in their own Country where they belong. When we get rid of the ILLEGAL ALIENS, we will get rid of all the problems that go with them. THAT IS A FACT!

Yes, get the illegal aliens out of this Country and send them condoms.

[mamala4]

Ouch! I have zero tolerance for people like you who forget that we were all once immigrants here.

[DavidClaiborne]

Hey Bob, I think it's time to switch to decaf, my friend.

[Lakeview Greg]

Are you channeling Jim Oberweis?

sheesh.

[mamala4]

Good one!

[larmarch5]

They are the ones who will be funding Boomers' social security, 401(k)'s, and medicare. US birth rates too low to provide growth and could not afford the FICA and medicare withholding necessary to cover the boomers.

[Dissident Dexter]

VERY apropos, if you get my drift. This a** thinks that if pot is stronger, people will overdose. Yikes.

[bluefire66]

Forget about Mexico....­maybe condoms should have faces of Congress on the wrappers for US distribution. With this motto: "Do you want to birth someone like (insert picture - no pun intended) ??
"Then be safe and wrap it up."

[chgoblue]

What's most amazing is the Mark Kiirk is considered a "moderate" in GOP circles. Yikes.

[mamala4]

Not by the dems in our district..­.he doesn't belong in the US Senate....

[larmarch5]

Any republican that supports birth control for any reason is moderate.

[RoveRoveRoveYourBoat]

...better as:
DUMB CON KIRK

[WmC]

Condoms? Why not abstinence only sex education for Mexico, given that it worked so well in the US.
NOT.

[wdw505]

really so the US young population has gone down to what again.....­.we as a country are producing an average 1.5 kids for every couple

but again thanks for playing

[chgoblue]

And you attribute that to abstinence only sex-ed? LOL...

Try to do some research before you mindlessly post:

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Health/Sex-education-may-reduce-teen-pregnancy-/1205952545.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8470845/

Thanks for playing!

[Lakeview Greg]

So to Helicopter Jim Oberweis we can add Condom Kirk.

At least Alan Keyes could sing!

ack.

[VOTER]

LOL!

[dans5843]

And this jerk wants to be my senator?

OVER MY COLD DEAD HANDS!

[Lucky123]

Whoa. Hold on. A republican in favor of birth control?

[babyboomerorig]

For Mexico....­.he's against it for the US.

[wdw505]

is that a bad thing now......

[postman66]

Same Congressman who went to China and told the Chinese not to trust the U.S economy. In the wake of the Blago/Burris fiasco Kirk looked like even money for Obama's Senate seat. Now he's learning the art of losing friends and p!ssingoff enemies.

[powerlift2201]

This is just a re-hashed eugenics argument. The woman who invented the pill was an ardent eugenicist. Her goal, since forced sterilization of those deemed lazy, crazy, poor or of criminal mind wasn't legal in every state, she developed the pill which could be easily administered to women who were held in prisons, assylums and then eventually those who they couldn't incarcerate. Rep. Krik's statements run right along those lines.

[Just4theHalibut]

Development of the birth control pill had many participants. But the most accepted "inventors" are all men. The pill has found its widest usage among married middle-class white women. Please don't quote anti-choice websites for your postings.

[RightWingMarine]

yeah! Margaret Sanger didn't do anything really! She's a hero to the left for no reason!

[slowtono]

Please! You are not allowed to vote Republican in Illinois, except in the southern farm land which has no say.

[roald]

Come to north and western collar counties and say that.

[RoveRoveRoveYourBoat]

...who's collar do you wear?

[Aldyth]

Hey, I'm in northwest Illinois and I haven't voted for a Republican in a long time.

However, I may be the only person in the county who hasn't.

*looks around furtively*

[Aldyth]

You are right, though. There's Chicago and the suburbs who hold the power in Illinois. The rest of us might as well be part of Iowa or Indiana.

Actually, I have spoken to a number of people about seceding to Iowa. If they'd just move that river a little to the west.

[VOTER]

Southern Illinoisans supported and voted for Obama.