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Policy

Colin Powell Doesn't Hire Illegal Immigrants … Directly or, We're All "Crapweasels" Now

Nick Gillespie | 9.21.2010 10:17 AM

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Yesterday, I blogged (approvingly!) comments from former Secretary of State Colin Powell about the work illegal immigrants do for those of us who are fully legal.

Powell had made the comments on a Sunday morning show (do those still exist?) and now has rushed to "clarify" his statements:

"I don't hire illegal immigrants," Powell says in a statement today. "On Meet the Press yesterday, I referred to illegal immigrants working around my house. I was referring to the many service contractors who work in my neighborhood, using mostly immigrant workers, who do good work. Some may well be 'illegal.' There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and most are working somewhere in our economy."

Whew, thanks for the clarification. For a second there, it seemed like you were really going out on a limb there.

Let me suggest that any of us who have eaten in a resataurant in any major and virtually all minor American cities have hired illegal immigrants; and that any of us who have eaten chicken or vegetables or fruit in the past 25 years have also hired illegals at least indirectly.

Does that make us a "crapweasel" like Colin Powell (that's internment enthusiast Michelle Malkin's epithet for Powell on the Twitter)? If it does, then let me be the first to admit I'm a crapweasel too you know! (And let me be the first to suggest that crapweasel is a real "jerk store" level insult.)

Here's another former high-ranking official and honorary crapweasel, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (now with FreedomWorks) talking at a Reason conference a coupla years back, explaining why we illegals come here and why we should "bless their hearts."

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NEXT: The Case Against Film Subsidies

Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.

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