Congressional candidate Anthony Mele and Carl Paladino both come out of the Tea Party insurgency
Tony Mele, the tea party insurgent who won a surprise victory over the Republican establishment to run against incumbent Elliot Engel, has been involved in conservative Hispanic political organizations for some time.
So it was surprising that he adopted the following position during his run for Congress:
The birthright citizenship policy that automatically makes citizens of children born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil must be ended. This policy acts as a magnet for border crossers and according to some sources may account for 10% of all U.S. births in recent years.
Familiarity with the Constitution, that he (repeatedly) says he “will uphold” would reveal that “birthright citizenship” is not a “policy”, it is a Constitutional right enshrined in the 14th Amendment. Abrogation of that right would make all of our citizenship statuses uncertain. we would all have to become genealogists scurrying to find out if our ancestors were “legal” when they came into the U.S.
This lack of information about the laws relating to immigrants should not surprise us, however.
Mele’s level of knowledge of immigration is summed up in a tag line he likes to use referring to border security:
“If you can’t sneak into Disneyland, how can you sneak into our country?”
Mele has also attracted attention for his position on the proposed downtown Islamic center.
While he expresses respect for Islam and the Prophet Mohamed, Mele describes the center as a potential national security threat:
The risk factor range high based on empirical data we can analyze over the course of a decade. Islamic centers in London, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Bulgaria, Pakistan and New York became infiltrated by terrorist who used them for cover to exchange money, arms, plans, and recruitment for terrorist attacks. Western societies have laws that preclude religious institutions from state security surveillance to any effective degree. Terrorist organizers use these laws to their advantage and intentionally utilize these institutions for their nefarious purposes. The risk that the Cordoba Project will be a magnet for these sophisticated terrorist cells for infiltration, recruitment and attacking the US is substantially higher due to one major factor that is the cause of every crime: Opportunity.
It will give terrorist planners, among other factors, the compelling opportunity to perpetrate their crime on an irresistible high value target, yet again. The risk and reward formula simply dictate that the risk to loss of life and destruction of property, among other economic and political considerations far outweigh any reward proposed by the builders of the Cordoba Project. They cannot offer any assurance, guarantee, methodology or security plan that would mitigate that risk by one iota.
He says that:
To force feed the Cordoba Project to New Yorker’s will only result in several problematic reoccurrences; resentment, distrust, conflict, and an unacceptable security risk to every one in proximity to this building should it proceed to its completion.
The 17th Congressional District, which Mele hopes to represent, includes nearly equal slices of the Bronx, Westchester, and Rockland counties.
In the Republican primary, Mele beat the mainstream Republican by less than 100 votes out of more than 7,000 cast, and the Rockland County party apparently is still antagonistic towards the tea party candidate for beating their man York Kleinhandler.
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