A Soft Right for Talk Radio on Kilgore and Immigration

The broadcast ended not with the promised session with Coulter but with a scramble to fill airtime with a last-minute substitute.

Off the air, with her Shih Tzu Dante and gray-black standard poodle Avon Barksdale (named for the drug lord in her favorite TV show, HBO's "The Wire") milling before her, Chavez dissected what she said is the dangerous territory being traversed by some of her GOP brethren who have seized upon immigration.

California Republicans' support for Proposition 187, which sought to deny public benefits to undocumented workers, wound up tarnishing the party and "diminished the viability of Republican candidates," Chavez said.

"I don't want to see that happen on a national level. It's really important that Republicans not assume the mantle of the anti-immigrant party," Chavez said.

On Herndon, she said, she agrees with Kilgore that government money should not be used for a center that would serve an illegal population.

Still, she said, "I would hate to see that issue be used just for political purposes. It's frankly not a state issue as much as it's a local issue. The town of Herndon is going to make its own decision on that. It has. The federal government has to deal with policing the border, number one, and coming up with a rational immigration policy, number two."

So, has Kilgore -- who has amplified the Herndon controversy into a statewide issue by repeating on the stump that government leaders should not spend taxpayer money to encourage illegal immigration -- been manipulating this for political gain?

"No. I don't think he is. But I think he has to be careful," Chavez said.

Indeed, some who say they applaud Kilgore's position have strayed into nasty territory. As part of a statement opposing the Herndon center at a meeting of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors this month, Herndon resident Robert Miller, 78, said he recently tallied the ethnicity of faces at a public school. He said he would not have sent his three now-grown children there.

"I think there were only 25 of them who are Anglos," Miller said. That would create "a poor educational milieu for my daughters."

Chavez said Congress should create a program for the 8 million to 12 million people living in the United States illegally. They should be made to pay a serious fine for breaking the law, go through a background check and be allowed to get back to work, she said.