A Republican congressman from Alaska on Thursday used a slur referring to immigrants, particularly Mexicans, in an interview with a public radio station in his home state.
Amid a hot-button debate in Washington over how to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, Rep. Don Young, a 21-term lawmaker, referred to immigrant workers as “wetbacks” — a term that could threaten to inflame the debate about immigration reform.
“My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” Young said in an interview with radio station KRBD. He was discussing the number of jobs that have been made irrelevant due to advances in automation.
Commentary by The Secular Jurist: The Republican Party’s forlorn hope of presenting a more moderate image is analogous to a person suffering from extreme anxiety who cannot stop twitching.
The Secular Jurist 