Tough-Guy Tancredo: A Covert Humanitarian?

The following piece is published on Colorado Confidential as well as HuffPost's OffTheBus.

By Kerri Rebresh

Some call him an honorable anti-illegal immigration crusader. To others, he's a self-righteous xenophobe. Love him or hate him, opinions of Tom Tancredo are usually based on his provocative positions on illegal immigration. But there are people who consider the Republican Colorado Congressman a humanitarian for reasons that have nothing to do with the border.

Although he's regularly called a racist by detractors, to the Genocide Intervention Network Tancredo is a hero. The organization named him one of its four "Champions of Darfur," and gave him an A+ on its legislative report card, Darfur Scores. Only 10 other House members received a top grade.

The Congressman and long-shot presidential candidate received points for sponsoring measures, such as a resolution encouraging all public and private institutions and private citizens to divest from companies doing business in Sudan. The resolution, introduced earlier this year, hasn't made it out of the House Committee on Financial Services. Tancredo sponsored another measure this year that would create a student loan forgiveness program for Sudanese living in the United States with the goal of encouraging them to return to southern Sudan to help with reconstruction efforts. Much of the Sudan-related legislation Tancredo has sponsored during his five terms in Congress has been focused on the Arab government's actions in the Christian southern region of the country. Tancredo, like many evangelical Christians in the U.S., first began paying attention to the Sudanese government because of its violence against the Christians in the south who now maintain a fragile peace agreement with the Arab government in Khartoum, following decades of civil war. The government is now charged with supporting Arab militias committing atrocities in Darfur.

Tancredo has sponsored several successful measures, such as the Sudan Peace Act of 2002, that affect the whole country.

"Congressman Tancredo has for years been one of the strongest voices on Sudan in the U.S. House of Representatives, and his leadership on Sudan issues has been important on a number of critical issues," Sudan advocate and Smith College Professor Eric Reeves said in an e-mail.

And it's not just Sudan peace supporters who revere the Congressman. The Taiwanese do, as well. The people of Taiwan, many of whom are Christian, are still considered by the U.S. to be under Chinese rule, although Taiwan functions as its own sovereign, democratic country.

This year Tancredo sponsored a resolution expressing Congressional support for Taiwan to be allowed to compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing under its own name and flag. He also sponsored a bill that would require Senate confirmation of the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan, which substitutes for an actual embassy.

Tancredo's support of Taiwanese independence has not gone unnoticed in the country. A recent article from the Taipei Times proclaimed, "Taiwan will lose one of its best friends in the U.S. Congress next year when Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo is to resign his seat after years of consistently championing Taiwan's cause in the House of Representatives." Tancredo, the article stated, has been "an insatiable writer of letters to officials in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, complaining of actions that are adverse to Taiwan or could hurt the nation's efforts to gain international recognition."

But despite such glowing admiration from the other side of the globe, most people in the U.S. know Tancredo only as the guy who called Miami a "third-world country." And Tancredo, it seems, wants it that way.

The Congressman has regularly made national - and sometimes international - headlines because of his positions on illegal immigration, but rarely does he get much media attention for his support of Sudanese peace or Taiwanese independence. In part, that's because illegal immigration is a more controversial issue in the U.S., but it's not entirely the fault of reporters.

Tancredo's office has issued 49 press releases this year about immigration and he's sponsored eight measures in the House relating to the subject. Although he's sponsored nearly as many measures concerning Sudan and Taiwan, he's issued just five press releases about Taiwan and none about Sudan.

Legislatively, Tancredo has given equal weight to human rights and illegal immigration. But rather than letting the former define him as a humanitarian, he cashed in the latter as his ticket to national notoriety.

Comments

[amamomofsons]

I think most elected officials mask their darker side with feigned concerns about humanitarian issues. His time would be better spent right here at home where we are in the biggest debt and most trouble ever. There are pictures throughout history of guys like Tom holding starving babies and pleading for help in poor districts while they reap the benefits of that false impersonation in the next election.

[unclebucky]

I have only two questions:

1. *Who* is this guy Tancredo, and why is this such a deal?

2. {sarcasm ON} Why doesn't he just submit a bill to add more states? The State of the Marianas, The State of Taiwan, the State of Poland, the State of Israel... (all cheaper and more acceptable white people...) But as for Latinos, those pesky brown people in Puerto Rico, set that island loose? {sarcasm off}

Tancredo belongs to the last 3 centuries, man...

Ugh.

--UB.

[Al91206]

Hate of is the easiest way into office and people like Tancredo know this. They tug at the fear of 'invasion', etc.

The undocumented are the gays of 2000 / 2004. In 2004 there were billboards with 2 gay men kissing that said 'Want more of this, then vote for Kerry'.

The GOP base knows 1 thing - and it's how to win by using hate and fear. They've perfected it.

[RustyCannon]

Tommie boy is a real humanitarian alright. That's why he voted against SCHIP and that's why he votes against every bill that will help veterans, active military, and seniors in the United States of America. He's really strong on securing our borders too. That's why he has voted against every bill to strengthen border security as suggested by the 9/11 commission. If Tancredo is doing anything for Sudan and Taiwan, or any other country in the world, it is pandering to his wacko extreme "Christian" right supporters in the name of "religious freedom" which in their glossary means "crusade". Remember, this is one of the 3 GOP presidential candidates that does not believe in evolution. There's probably good reason for that, since his particular gene pool seems to have some how escaped the harsh reality of natural selection.

[oldgringo]

"Covert Humanitarian"....in a pigs rear end!
Tancedro is another MAD HATTER loose in Congress with a lot more deranged fanatics that were better off locked up in rubber rooms with no sharp edges!

[llozano]

Would he be just as passionate about Sudan and Taiwan if they did not have a Christian population? I agree that sometime politicians do things to keep their name in the news but we should not let it keep us from looking beneath the surface. Tancredo's tirades on the undocumented are having real negative impacts on real people. How can you be humanitarian in one case and not in another? Aren't we all human beings? Could it be distance makes one more humane?

[jwod]

What's with Tancredo? He can only see humanitarian concerns if they're halfway around the world? Hey, Tom, check out your own backyard! What, those abused and disciminated against hard working people are illegals? Stone 'em to death!

[DinTN]

"hate-fear­-mongering­"?

Why? Because someone actually wants to save America?
Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

11-06-07 4.2 million in less than 24 hours!

RON PAUL - TOM TANCREDO IN '08!
*Physically secure our borders and coastlines.
*Track visa holders and deport anyone who overstays.
*End birthright citizenship.
*No Amnesty.
*End "Catch & Release"
*No welfare for illegal aliens.
and......BUILD THE FENCE!

www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/016089.html

"It's Your Country. Take It Back!" Tom Tancredo

http://www.numbersusa.com
http://www.fairus.org
http://www.alipac.us
http://www.capwiz.com

[WHATVOICE]

I recently taught a parenting class to divorcing parents - the class is required by law in Colorado. In one of the exercises, I asked the parents to choose the age of one of their children, then go back in time to when they were that age. What dramatic or traumatic event happened to them when they were that age? One parent surprised us by stating that Tancredo was his teacher that year, and made fun of, belittled, or tore many of his students to shreds. This negative-labeling and abusive name calling of students by Tancredo was the thing he remembered most about that single year and the most traumatic. So is Tancredo a racist trying to grab media attention as a "do gooder" in Congress? Or just a sicko who has left a trail of broken lives behind him?

[midtown]

Tancredo could use some US history:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/opinion/09horwitz.html

"[S]o amid the din over border control, the Senate affirms the self-evident truth that English is our national language; "It is part of our blood," Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, says. Border vigilantes call themselves Minutemen, summoning colonial Massachusetts as they apprehend Hispanics in the desert Southwest. Even undocumented immigrants invoke our Anglo founders, waving placards that read, "The Pilgrims didn't have papers."

These newcomers are well indoctrinated; four of the sample questions on our naturalization test ask about Pilgrims. Nothing in the sample exam suggests that prospective citizens need know anything that occurred on this continent before the Mayflower landed in 1620. Few Americans do, after all.

This national amnesia isn't new, but it's glaring and supremely paradoxical at a moment when politicians warn of the threat posed to our culture and identity by an invasion of immigrants from across the Mexican border. If Americans hit the books, they'd find what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. The early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English, and our denial of this heritage is rooted in age-old stereotypes that still entangle today's immigration debate. [...]"

[realitytrumpsbull]

'let the prisoners pick the fruits'.?????
Another jokester that doesn't 'get it'.

[certainot]

like many in the modern GOP, Tancredo wouldn't be in politics if it wasn't for the local talk radio propaganda machine.

[cynara]

"In part, that's because illegal immigration is a more controversial issue in the U.S., but it's not entirely the fault of reporters."

Not entirely the fault of reporters? The man said he wanted to bomb Mecca, the press would have been crazy to ignore this.

And check out this beautiful peice of hate-fear-­mongering:

http://teamtancredo.org/

Tancredo has projected the image he wants to project, fear-mongerer, immigrant hater, etc., etc., nothing is wrong with the press for picking up on this.

Now, the fact that he's actually done some positive things for Sudan, a majority muslim nation, may mean that this race-biting may be more for political show, than a reflection of his own beliefs.

That said, regardless of his motivation, he has been very successful in inflating anti-muslim and anti-immigrant passions in the general population.