Pair Call for Reason on Hot Topic: Immigration

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In Utah, Yapias said the situation seems to be at a boiling point. He recently attended an emotionally charged meeting of Save America, a newly formed group dedicated to sealing the nation’s borders and deporting those who reside here illegally. The group’s efforts are targeted at Utah’s two Republican senators, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett.

Save America founder Barry Hatch is gathering supporters through impassioned speeches, saying floods of immigrants are attempting to overwhelm the United States and its culture.

“America is being used as a great big joke,” Hatch said. He said Chinese and Mexican immigrants took over Monterey Park, Calif., where he was at one time a teacher and mayor.

“They are coming as conquerors. They are colonizing, and they are spreading fast,” he said. “I watched my community where I was born become China. I worked in a community that was white Americans . . . they were overwhelmed.”

Barry Hatch and others who attended the meeting said their motives aren’t racial or anti-immigrant, but pro-American. They say they’re working against a tide of undocumented immigrants.

However, Yapias found it hard to see Hatch’s message as anything but racist.

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