GOP lawmakers targeted for immigration stance
July 18, 2013
A Democratic super PAC is taking aim three House Republicans for their stance on immigration in new Spanish-language ads.
The House Majority PAC is targeting GOP Reps. Mike Coffman of Colorado, Gary Miller of California and Joe Heck of Nevada in the commercials. Each lawmaker represents a district with sizable Latino populations.
The ads come as the House begins in earnest to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. Republican leaders are adamant that the House will not consider a Senate-passed bill, which includes a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people who came to the USA illegally.
Coffman, Miller and Heck all voted for legislation in June that would resume the deportation of thousands of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. President Obama last year ordered a halt to these deportations. His action was a response to the inability of Congress to pass what is known as the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to these undocumented immigrants.
“Congressman Heck and his extreme Republican friends are part of the problem. Heck voted to deport DREAMers — brought here as children,” a narrator says one of the ads, according to the English translation.
The House Majority PAC is spending $175,000 to run the ads on Spanish-language broadcast stations in Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas for the next two weeks. The three lawmakers are among the group’s top targets for defeat in 2014.