By BETH FOUHY 06.30.07, 6:05 PM ET
Taking a swipe at a potential GOP presidential rival, Democrat Hillary
Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized Fred Thompson for suggesting
illegal Cuban immigrants pose a terrorist threat.
"I was appalled when one of the people running for or about to run for
the Republican nomination talked about Cuban refugees as potential
terrorists," Clinton told Hispanic elected officials. "Apparently he
doesn't have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and
doesn't know a lot of Cuban-Americans."
Thompson, who is polling strongly among GOP primary voters and is
expected to join the race soon, made the comment at a campaign stop
Wednesday in South Carolina.
The actor and former Tennessee senator was criticizing an immigration
bill in the Senate, contending it would make the country more vulnerable
to terrorism.
Noting that the United States had apprehended 1,000 people from Cuba in
2005, Thompson said, "I don't imagine they're coming here to bring
greetings from Castro. We're living in the era of the suitcase bomb."
Fidel Castro is Cuba's leader.
A video clip of Thompson's remark immediately circulated on YouTube and
has drawn considerable attention in Florida, a key early primary state
home to many Republican-leaning Cuban Americans.
Thompson spokeswoman Burson Snyder declined to comment Saturday,
pointing to a note Thompson posted Thursday on his campaign blog saying
he had been referring to Cuban spies, not immigrants. "Our national
security is too important an issue to let folks twist words around for a
one-day headline," Thompson said in his post. "Cuban-Americans are among
the staunchest opponents of illegal immigration, and especially so when
it's sponsored by the Castro regime."
All the major Democratic presidential candidates were at Walt Disney
(nyse: DIS - news - people ) World for a forum sponsored by the National
Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Of the GOP
candidates, only California Rep. Duncan Hunter accepted the group's
invitation to speak.
With the failure of an immigration reform bill in the Senate still
fresh, all the candidates vowed to pursue comprehensive immigration
reform in the future. All said they support a path to citizenship for
the 12 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama defended his vote last year to build a
700-mile fence across the U.S.-Mexican border, saying it was just one
component of a robust immigration bill he had worked hard to negotiate.
"Nobody has been a more consistent supporter of comprehensive
immigration reform than I have been," Obama said. "Do I believe fences
make good neighbors and are the right approach? No, I don't believe that."
Obama also promised a greater foreign policy focus on Latin America if
elected president.
"It's not enough for us to have a Latin American policy based on not
liking (Venezuelan president) Hugo Chavez and not liking Fidel Castro,"
Obama said.
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden drew applause when he noted that as many as 40
percent of illegal immigrants were not Hispanic.
"It's a race to the bottom - who out there can be the most
anti-Hispanic," Biden said of the immigration debate. "Why is it we only
view it through the prism of Spanish speaking people?"
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards told the crowd his rural
hometown of Robbins, N.C. was now half Hispanic.
"They came for the same reason my parents came - they wanted their
children to have a better life," Edwards said.
Several of the candidates laced their remarks with Spanish, with varying
degrees of success.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, fully bilingual from his days as a Peace
Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, cracked up the crowd when he
told them, in Spanish, "I'm the only Gringo in the Senate" to speak the
language.
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, saying he believed all American children
should learn to speak Spanish, gave his closing statement in Spanish
while apologizing in advance for his accent.
Audience members at first seemed unsure how to respond, but in the end
appeared somewhat charmed at his efforts to soldier through.
"It worked, but barely," Democratic Texas State Rep. Rafael Anchia said
of Kucinich's effort.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson won cheers from the audience as the
first Hispanic candidate to run for president. He, too, spoke Spanish to
the crowd, calling them "Mi gente, mi familia" - my people, my family.
"I'm not running as a Latino candidate. I'm running as an American
governor who is enormously proud to be Latino," he told supporters.
A fluent Spanish speaker, Richardson called his supporters at the
association "Mi gente, mi familia," - my people, my family.
Florida, which intends to hold its important primary Jan. 29, is more
than 20 percent Hispanic.
Associated Press Writer Laura Wides-Munoz contributed to this report.
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