Just to follow up on yesterday’s item on the California Republican Party’s immigration problem, things have quickly gone from bad to worse (except for Dems, for whom the story has gone from entertaining to pass-the-popcorn hilarious).
To briefly recap, the state GOP hired Christopher Matthews, a Canadian citizen, through a coveted H-1B visa, which seemed odd, given that the party was implicitly suggesting that there are no Americans in California qualified for the job. Worse, he has no experience in statewide politics. Worse still, Matthews was hired by Michael Kamburowski, the state GOP’s chief operations officer, who is an Australian citizen with a criminal record who has been fleeing deportation orders for years.
Kamburowski quickly resigned when the news broke, but the story gets funnier today.
California Republican Party officials might have violated federal immigration law by hiring an Australian immigrant for a top finance post without ever demanding to see his proof of legal residence, immigration officials said Tuesday.
Ron Nehring, who heads the California Republican Party, admitted Tuesday that he — and as far as he knows, any party officials — never saw the green card that would prove that Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen hired as the state GOP’s chief operations officer, was a legal resident.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division said Tuesday the law is clear that “it is the responsibility of the employers to check and see that someone is legally in the country and eligible to work.”
Oops.
Steve Schmidt, who left the White House to run Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign, described this mess as “almost a parody of incompetence and malfeasance” — and that was before allegations that the state party violated federal immigration laws.
“This is the typical GOP hypocrisy,” said Luis Miranda, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee Tuesday. “They will scapegoat immigrants to try and win elections, but they will look the other way when it comes to rewarding their cronies.”
Nativo Lopez, national president of the Mexican American Political Association, said the GOP case illustrates that on immigration and border security, “it’s good for (Republicans) when it’s convenient for them — and as long as it comes from a country of their choosing.
“But they are perennially focused on the southern border, and it smacks of racism when they posture against immigrants of color from the south.”
And that underscores what many critics say is another critical aspect of the immigration debate: that when it comes to the volatile issue of who gets legal immigration status, “there’s privilege and there’s connections, and that’s what happened,” said Hoover Institution research fellow Bill Whalen, who was an adviser to former Gov. Pete Wilson. “This guy (Kamburowski) was connected, he breezed through the (hiring) process — and now it’s blown up in their face.”
It sure has.