Immigration Activists Crash Tea Party Fundraiser, Rand Paul ‘Just Decided To Run Away’ (Video)

Two undocumented immigrants showed up at a fundraiser for Tea Party hero, anti-gay Congressman Steve King. Senator Rand Paul quickly “ran away” as the strained conversation began.

U.S. Republican Senator Rand Paul knows when to pull up stakes — or steaks — and leave.

At an Iowa fundraiser for his good friend, anti-gay Tea Party Congressman Steve King, Senator Paul and his handlers sensed quickly that two immigration activists were going to start a conversation that he did not want to get involved with. 

Erika Andiola and Cesar Vargas, both undocumented immigrants and DREAMers, approached the Iowa Congressman last night, just as the two Tea Party pols were chowing down. Amid warm handshakes, Sen. Paul continued attacking his burger, and Rep. King would shortly be attacking the two young immigrants.

“My name is Erika,” Andiola said. “I’m actually a DREAMer myself.”

That’s when Sen. Paul, still in mid-burger-bite, stood up — not for immigration — and was quickly whisked away by a handler.

“Instead of actually staying there and talking to us about it, he just decided to run away,” Andiola said later in an interview.

“I know you really want to get rid of DACA,” Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama program that temporarily allows DREAMers to avoid deportation, Andiola told King. “So I just wanted to give you the opportunity and rip mine,” she added, handing King what appeared to be her DACA registration card.

“This is not what I do,” King repeatedly insisted, as he stood up, removed his glasses, and with both fingers pointed at the young immigrant.

Andiola accused King of calling undocumented immigrants “names.” 

Last summer, King told a reporter that practically every undocumented immigrant is a drug smuggler.

“For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who — they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

But last night King wholly denied he was talking about anyone other than drug smugglers, as he asked Andiola, “are you a drug smuggler?” And then, “You can tell me, are you a drug smuggler?”

King also saw fit to display his condescending confusion, repeatedly, about why she speaks English well, and noted that her ears worked just fine. At one point he frustratedly grabbed her by her fingers, as he pointed to her and said, “Stop a minute, stop a minute. You’re very good at English. You know what I’m saying. You can understand the English language.”

Andiola repeatedly had to tell Rep. King that she was brought to America as a small child, by her mother, to escape her violent father. She was raised in the U.S. and has lived here for 17 years, so of course she is “very good at English.”

The problem is that King does not understand that she is just as American as her peers born in this country — she just doesn’t have the legal papers.

Andiola and Vargas came to Iowa to have a respectful, productive conversation about immigration. Instead, they were the butt of condescension.

“I’m really sorry that you come from a lawless country,” Rep. King said at the end. “I hope that you can have a happy life. But please, do not erode the rule of law in America.”

King later told CNN that Andiola and Vargas simply came “to create a scene.”

“And I decided early in the conversation that I was not going to walk away,” he told reporters. “They’re here demanding that we change the laws…Why would you want to bring lawlessness to the United States of America? And that’s the question they cannot answer. Why would we want to turn America into a third world country?”

Clearly, King did not hear a word Andiola said, including these:

“We’re trying the best way possible to be accepted by this community…to be able to work here, to become Americans. A lot of us grew up as Americans but we’re not accepted as one.” 

Watch:

 

Image via DRM Action Coalition on Facebook