IF IT WALKS LIKE A RACIAL HYGIENISTS, TALKS LIKE A RACIAL HYGIENIST...:

How Not to Alienate Hispanics (Ruben Navarrette, 5/09/10, Real Clear Politics)

• Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is a vocal supporter of Arizona's new racial and ethnic profiling law. He's entitled to his opinion. He just has a problem with his colleague, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., expressing a different one. During a recent interview on Fox News, King said he wondered if Grijalva's congressional district in southern Arizona hadn't already been "ceded" to Mexico. He accused Grijalva of "advocating for Mexico rather than the United States."

• Speaking at a tea party in San Diego County, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Alpine, was asked if he would "support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens." After repeating the question to make sure he understood it, Hunter responded: "I would have to, yes." Predictably, the audience applauded. Citing the cost of illegal immigration on education, health care and jails, Hunter added: "We simply cannot afford what we're doing right now."

• Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, took to the floor of the House of Representatives and compared illegal immigrants to insects. Poe asked why the United States could prevent "illegal grasshoppers" from entering the country from Brazil but couldn't capture "thousands of people that cross the border every day on the southern border of the United States." This really perplexed Poe, who said illegal immigrants are "a little bigger than grasshoppers and they should be able to be captured easier."

• Discussing the Arizona law on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, claimed that concerns about racial profiling are unfounded because it really isn't so difficult to detect illegal immigrants. When Matthews asked Bilbray to name a "non-ethnic" way for police to determine if someone is in the country illegally, the congressman said: "They will look at the kind of dress you wear, there's different type of attire, there's different type of - right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes."

Questioning the loyalty of members of Congress? Urging the deportation of U.S. citizens? Comparing illegal immigrants to grasshoppers? And saying that illegal immigrants wear a certain type of clothes? They can't be serious.