Reporting on a decision by Dallas, Texas-based restaurant chain Pizza Patrón to start accepting Mexican pesos as payment at its stores -- including two in Colorado -- KCNC's CBS4 News at 6 p.m. reported on its January 9 broadcast that "[c]ritics say the program will encourage illegal immigration." CBS4 News reporter Katherine Blake then quoted “activist” Frosty Wooldridge -- whose views on immigration have led conservative Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi to label him “a modern-day Chicken Little” -- as saying that, because of Pizza Patrón's decision, “Mexico is now bringing its own people into our country and creating their own Mexico inside of America, and they're displacing us.”

Wooldridge is the author of Immigration's Unarmed Invasion (Author House, 2004) and a participant in the "21st Century Paul Revere Ride of 2006" -- described on the organizer's website as a “summer-long cross-country motorcycle ride that visited all of the lower 48 state capitols to inform the public and their elected public servants of the severity of the illegal immigration crisis.”

In one of his many immigration-related articles posted on the NewsWithViews.com website, Wooldridge asserted: “We cannot celebrate or tolerate growing numbers of Charles Mansons' from other cultures like Muslim terrorists among us.” In another posting, Wooldridge mused:

Look around at the 56 Mexican consulates aiding and abetting illegal aliens to imbed themselves in our country. Look at the audacity of their lawlessness in our streets with forged documents, driving drunk with no insurance, spreading diseases like tuberculosis and openly laughing at our laws. If you think France's problems with legal Muslim immigrants rioting were terrible, just wait until our illegal Mexican aliens riot, or worse, start voting!

Appearing as a guest on the September 26 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show, Wooldridge repeated the dubious statistic -- originally attributed to U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) -- that illegal immigrants “kill 25 Americans every single day of the year.” As Colorado Media Matters has noted, Boyles and others have falsely attributed King's figure to the findings of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. In fact, there is no GAO study reporting that 25 Americans per day are killed by illegal immigrants.

Wooldridge also falsely suggested that “29 percent of criminals filling jails across this country are illegal and legal immigrants” who “cost U.S. taxpayers $1.6 billion annually” in a March 25, 2005, NewsWithViews article. Yet as Colorado Media Matters pointed out, an April 7, 2005, GAO study reported that in 2002, 2003, and 2004, the “percentage of all federal prisoners who are criminal aliens” -- legal and illegal -- was “about 27 percent.”

Moreover, according to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), on June 30, 2004, “noncitizens” represented an even lower proportion -- 20.3 percent of federal prisoners -- down from 23.5 percent in 2003 and 25.0 percent in 2002. And factoring in state incarcerations, the BJS determined that only 6.4 percent of all state and federal prison inmates at midyear 2005 were “noncitizens” -- not just illegal immigrants -- down from 6.5 percent in 2004, 6.6 percent in 2003, and 6.9 percent in 2002.

From the January 9 broadcast of KCNC's CBS4 News at 6 p.m.:

JIM BENEMANN (co-anchor): A pizza chain is serving up controversy with a new test program.

MOLLY HUGHES (co-anchor): It is allowing customers to pay with pesos. CBS4's Katherine Blake is at one of the stores, at Sixth and Chambers in Aurora, tonight, and Katherine, some people just don't like the idea, and think the stores should not accept Mexican currency.

BLAKE: That's true, Molly. It's called Pizza for Pesos. A corporate spokesperson tells me it started as a joke when some customers facetiously asked if they could pay for their pizza with Mexican money. Corporate managers decided they'd give it a try; the program started yesterday, and already it's getting national attention on the airwaves.

RANDY SCHMIDT [franchise owner]: It's kind of been shocking to say the least, I mean --

BLAKE: Randy Schmidt can't believe how much talk these two words [aceptamos pesos] are generating.

SCHMIDT: I mean, it's not every day you get to be right next to the governor on the front page of The Denver Post.

BLAKE: Schmidt owns three Pizza Patrón stores in the metro area. The Mexico-born businessman was attracted to the national chain because of the way it caters to the Hispanic community.

SCHMIDT: Our decoration, our music, our menu --

BLAKE: This week, Pizza Patrón took that concept a step farther, allowing customers to pay for their pie with Mexican pesos.

SCHMIDT: This is a, strictly a business decision to try and strengthen our position in the pizza industry.

BLAKE: Critics say the program will encourage illegal immigration. Activist Frosty Wooldridge tells me, quote, they're helping them because all of a sudden you can use Mexican money here in the U.S. He goes on to say, Mexico is now bringing its own people into our country and creating their own Mexico inside of America, and they're displacing us.

A spokesperson for Pizza Patrón's national headquarters in Dallas, Texas, disagrees. Andy Gamm tells me it's just an important business tool for a smaller chain trying to compete with the big boys.

GAMM: I can't imagine any illegal alien coming across the border into this country with pockets full of pesos looking to make his first discretionary purchase at a pizza store.

BLAKE: This is a test program; the stores will see how it does for the next two months. If it does well, they will continue letting their customers pay for their pizzas with pesos. Molly, back to you.

HUGHES: Be interesting to see what happens. Thank you, Katherine. Well, we want to know what you think about all this. Should an American business accept pesos? Go to CBS4Denver.com to take our poll. Right now, we want to show you how the votes are going so far: 9 percent are saying yes, they like the idea; 87 percent say no; and 4 percent say they just don't know. So at this point --

BENEMANN: Appears to touch a nerve already, huh?

HUGHES: Absolutely.