“Gunny” Bob: Senate immigration bill “is going to kill people”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Disparaging illegal immigrants and labeling a proposed immigration reform measure an “amnesty bill,” Newsradio 850 KOA host “Gunny” Bob Newman asserted on his May 18 show that the federal legislation “is going to kill people.” Further, Newman made the baseless claim that a Latino civil-rights organization is a “hard-core racist” group that aims to “re-seize the American Southwest and break away from the United States.”

After making the unsubstantiated claim that The National Council of La Raza is a “hard-core racist, separatist group” that had been “involved” in drafting proposed federal immigration reform legislation, Newsradio 850 KOA's “Gunny” Bob Newman asserted on his May 18 broadcast that the bill “is going to kill people.” Newman further asserted that “treating the illegal aliens with dignity and with respect and with kindness and with generosity” was much more important to President Bush and the Senate leadership than “Americans not being run over by illegal aliens driving drunk” or “3-year-old girls not being molested and raped by illegal aliens, elderly people in their homes at night not being shot to death by illegal aliens who ... broke into their home.”

Before his rant, Newman claimed that La Raza seeks to “re-seize the American Southwest and break away from the United States; form their own country that includes ... Mexico and down into Central America; and throw out everybody, everybody who isn't Hispanic.” Newman's comments about La Raza were similar to those of former Republican and Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who said on the September 5, 2006, broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show that “Mexican consuls, and intellectuals, and writers, and journalists, and others” sought “re-annexation -- linguistically, culturally, socially, and ethnically -- of the Southwest [United States].”

Newman repeatedly referred to the legislation, Senate Bill 1348, as an “amnesty bill,” a characterization disputed by White House officials and by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

From the May 18 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Gunny Bob Show:

NEWMAN: I want to know. La Raza -- otherwise known as “the movement” -- this is a hard-core racist, separatist group that has been involved in getting the legislation for the amnesty bill written. You know, getting the words written the way they've been written. They have been seen going in and out of senators' offices. None of them that I know of have been seen around the White House. What they want to do is, is re-seize the American Southwest and break away from the United States; form their own country that includes, you know, Mexico and down into Central America; and throw out everybody, everybody who isn't Hispanic. Everybody gone. Arabs, blacks, whites, Asians. If, if you're -- if they are successful and you're there you don't look like them, you're gone. 303-713-8585. But, now, why didn't Senator Salazar tell his constituents -- that would be you and I if you live in Colorado, although we're going out to 38 states, three countries, and a small moon -- why didn't he tell us about La Raza being involved in the writing of this legislation. Why?!

[...]

NEWMAN: Listen, if the illegal aliens broke our laws in the first place, is there any reason -- I mean, why should we think that they will obey our laws now? This doesn't make any sense, this amnesty bill. It's, it's pure unadulterated amnesty, and you're going to pay for it and I'm going to pay for it, and people are going to die because of it. 303-713-8585. I'm “Gunny” Bob on 850 KOA. Let's return to the phones. Time on deck is, is 11:43. This bill is going to kill people, and the president and the -- and the Senate leadership doesn't -- they don't care. They don't care, because treating the illegal aliens with dignity and with respect and with kindness and with generosity is much more important than, than Americans being safe, and Americans not having their wages depressed because of illegal aliens, and Americans not being run over by illegal aliens driving drunk, and police officers -- say, in Denver -- not being shot to death by illegal aliens, police officers in Los Angeles not being hit in the head with frozen water bottles, 3-year-old girls not being molested and raped by illegal aliens, elderly people in their homes at night not being shot to death by illegal aliens who breaked into -- broke into their home.