Broadcasting live on April 23 from an immigration reform rally in Washington, D.C., 630 KHOW-AM host Peter Boyles interviewed T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council (the U.S. Border Patrol's labor union), who repeated the falsehood that “if a child is born here, by virtue of birth they are a U.S. citizen, and the U.S. government will not remove the parents” if they are illegal immigrants. However, Colorado Media Matters has pointed out numerous examples of U.S.-born children left behind after their foreign-born mothers were deported.

Furthermore, when Boyles asked him how to identify a so-called “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants, Bonner replied, "[L]ook around. If people are just brazenly standing around on the street corners, people who appear to be illegal aliens, and they're just milling around, looking for work or just hanging out, then, odds are, probably a sanctuary city."

The immigration reform rally, “Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2007: A National Drive for Immigration Reform,” is taking place April 22-25 in Washington, D.C. Conservative talk show hosts from around the country are broadcasting from the rally, which is sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Colorado Media Matters has noted that FAIR has faced bipartisan accusations of airing “racially inflammatory” anti-immigration ads in conjunction with another group, the Coalition for the Future of the American Worker.

Boyles, Bonner, and frequent guest Terry Anderson also revisited the false claim that Denver is a “sanctuary city,” which Colorado Media Matters has debunked repeatedly. In discussing several ways to “make a determination ... on what city is sanctuary,” Boyles asked, “Suppose a city said we'll accept matricula ID as a form of identification?” Anderson and Bonner both replied, “We're cookin'.”

But in suggesting that acceptance of matricula cards -- which are issued by the Mexican government to Mexican citizens living in the United States -- indicates Denver has a “sanctuary” policy, Boyles ignored reporting to the contrary. As the Rocky Mountain News noted in an October 24, 2006, article, “In 2003, the Colorado legislature passed a law forbidding state and local governments from accepting the [matricula consular] cards as identification."

After dispensing several other sanctuary falsehoods, Boyles claimed, “Put those together. They don't spell 'mother,' they spell Denver.” In fact, as Colorado Media Matters repeatedly has noted, Denver is not a sanctuary city, according to former Denver City Attorney Cole Finegan, Colorado statute, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, and even conservative Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly.

During the broadcast, Boyles revived his oft-repeated “anchor baby” falsehood, asking his guests, “Do you know of cases where the baby -- an infant, newborn, or a year old, or 2 years of age -- was held here and the mother got kicked out?” Bonner replied, “I know of no such case” and Anderson said, “I'm still waiting.” Bonner stated that “if a child is born here, by virtue of birth they are a U.S. citizen, and the U.S. government will not remove the parents of that child.”

But as The New York Times reported on November 24, 2004, "[I]mmigration experts say there are tens of thousands of children every year who lose a parent to deportation." Colorado Media Matters recently documented examples of deportations of foreign mothers with U.S.-born children:

• According to a June 10, 2006, article in The Kansas City Star, Myrna Dick, a Mexican immigrant who “came to America with her parents when she was a child,” was deported in 2006, leaving “her husband and 19-month-old-son” in the U.S. after “a denial by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis of her emergency application for a stay of deportation.”
• The National Journal (accessed through the Nexis database) reported on July 15, 2006, that Carolina Sulecio-Hernandez was deported to Guatemala from Richmond, Virginia, leaving her 3-year-old son Sammy with her husband. She was brought to the United States by her mother as a child. When she went to immigration enforcement seeking to become a legal U.S. citizen, “Immigration enforcement agents met them [Sulecio-Hernandez and her husband] there, took Sulecio-Hernandez into custody, and locked her up in a jail in Hampton, Va. It turned out she had an outstanding deportation order against her” from when she was 12 years old and her mother brought her back from Canada.

Boyles himself cited two examples of such deportations on the April 16 broadcast of his show.

From the April 23 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

BOYLES: How do I -- how do I make a determination, T.J., on what city is sanctuary? What should I look for if I were -- if I drove into some town, I'd never been there before, what would I look for to say, well then, maybe this is --

ANDERSON: Look, look to see if the city's spelled in English. If it's spelled in English, it's sanctuary. Sorry, T.J.

[Laughter]

BOYLES: I love him more now than I ever have in the past.

BONNER: Well, most cities will not advertise the fact that they're sanctuary cities.

BOYLES: That's number one.

BONNER: But look around. If people are just brazenly standing around on the street corners, people who appear to be illegal aliens, and they're just milling around, looking for work or just hanging out, then, odds are, probably a sanctuary city.

BOYLES: What if a city, for instance, were to build at the taxpayers' expense a place for illegal aliens to gather to, to work illegally?

BONNER: That's another good clue.

BOYLES: All right, number 2. Suppose a city had mandated its law enforcement that they could not request immigration status on a stop?

BONNER: Very good clue.

BOYLES: That's be another probably illegal sanctuary immigration issue. Suppose, for instance, the city put out a memo that said, “We can't call them 'illegal immigrants' anymore, we should only call them 'unauthorized immigrants?' ”

BONNER: Another good clue.

BOYLES: Suppose a city said we'll accept matricula ID as a form of identification?

ANDERSON: We're cookin'.

BONNER: Yeah.

ANDERSON: We're cookin'.

BONNER: We're cookin' here.

BOYLES: Put those together. They don't spell “mother,” they spell Denver. And the mayor last Friday said this is not a sanctuary city. Is this Shakespearean? A rose by any other name?

BONNER: It's kind of like Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.

[...]

BOYLES: Do, or does the issue of anchor babies exist?

BONNER: Absolutely.

BOYLES: Yeah. Now why do people continue to say that's not the truth?

BONNER: Because they don't want to acknowledge the scope and extent of the problem that we have.

BOYLES: An example of what you mean.

BONNER: The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was never intended to grant automatic citizenship --

BOYLES: That's right.

BONNER: -- to people who are in this country illegally and give birth.

[...]

BOYLES: All right, having said that -- so a mother comes here illegally and has a baby. Do you know of cases where the baby -- an infant, newborn, or a year old, or 2 years of age -- was held here and the mother got kicked out?

BONNER: I know of no such case.

BOYLES: Do you know, T.J., of anything like that, where the newborn -- we're going to talk with these guys coming up -- do you know of, do you know of a case in Southern Cal, where an infant is kept in this country and the mother's thrown out?

ANDERSON: I'm still waiting.

BOYLES: So we're --

ANDERSON: There's no, there's no such case.

BOYLES: So we have bloggers and Webbers and people that say that's just a total lie when we say that on the air.

BONNER: Well, we know who's lying on that count.

BOYLES: Of course.

BONNER: Because if a child is born here, by virtue of birth they are a U.S. citizen, and the U.S. government will not remove the parents of that child.

[...]

BOYLES: Now, for Denver, Colorado, for the mayor of the city to appear on Mike Rosen's show on 850 KOA, say, “Sanctuary isn't a policy.” The, the man who murdered Denver police Officer Donnie Young left a woman and a baby here; the woman's illegal. In California he left two children and a woman there; she was illegal. Now, that woman in Denver with the baby appeared on the front page of the Rocky Mountain News holding Gomez-Garcia's baby. No border patrol person, no Denver cop, no anybody came to that house and took that baby and threw her out of the country. Now, how in God's name these people can still say this on the Internet, or on websites, or emails, or appearing on radio shows and say, “That's not sanctuary” -- then the moon must be a balloon.