A Colorado congressman who may run for president visited Iowa this weekend. Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo says he has to make up his mind soon. "Because the time table that is set up, mostly because of the fact that your state is going to be leading the charge, so to speak, down the road toward the nomination I find that we have to make a decision here very, very, very soon," Tancredo says. Tancredo has written the book "In Mortal Danger" to outline his argument that the U.S. needs to crack down on illegal immigration and he appeared in two Iowa bookstores this weekend to autograph copies of the book.
"It’s ironic in a way that we talk about Iraq as much as we do because of its importance to our national security, but we leave off the table for public discussion an issue that is just as important to our national security and perhaps even more so in the bigger picture in terms of our ability to maintain our culture…and therefore to maintain our strength in the clash of civilizations in which we find ourselves," Tancredo says.
Tancredo says he is "closer" to launching a campaign for the White House because the other candidates who are already in the race have failed to adequately address the immigration issue."The fact is no one up to this point in time, none of the what I call the tall guys with good hair, the ones who are the ‘serious candidates’ are addressing it," Tancredo says. "None of them really want to address it."
Tancredo faults the Bush Administration for failing to pursue the Swift meatpacking company’s executives after recent raids turned up illegal immigrants working in Swift plants around the country, including the Swift plant in Marshalltown. Tancredo says there should be an investigation to see if Swift administrators were "conspiring" to bring illegal immigrants into the country to work as meatpackers. Tancredo goes so far as to label the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that occurred right before Christmas "more show than substance." Tancredo represents the Denver suburbs in congress. He was in Council Bluffs Saturday afternoon and in West Des Moines on Sunday.