On radio yesterday, Glenn shared the story of Kansas State Attorney General Kris Kobach who was targeted over the weekend by members of the pro-immigration reform group Sunflower Community Action Network.
Protestors marched on Kobach’s home on Saturday, leaving behind a pile of shoes “of the fathers he’s deported.” Kobach was targeted because he is considered the architect of Arizona’s immigration law.
This morning, Glenn interviewed Kobach about the incident.
“He is a very brave man and leading the way to stand against illegal immigration. Not against immigration. Against illegal immigration,” Glenn said of Kobach. “He is leading the way. Kansas is now the only state, I believe left, where you are forced to produce identification to go vote. This Supreme Court yesterday overturned the Arizona case. It's crazy. It is absolutely crazy.”
Fortunately for Kobach and his family, when the some 700 organized protestors descended on his home on Saturday, he was not home.
“I just really feel blessed we weren't home, because I've got four young daughters, aged 9 and younger, and they would have been absolutely terrified,” Kobach said. “This would have been sort of a scarring event in their lives, seeing people, a mob descend on our house with megaphones and signs.”
Like Glenn began to explain yesterday, Kobach reiterated that the Sunflower Community Action Network is a well-organized and well-funded group that has won grants from progressive foundations for its work for economic and social justice.
“Well, the organizers of the rally - first of all, they spent a lot of money on this, or the mob action, whatever you want to call it. They had four buses, presumably rented or purchased, they brought in a busload of people all the way from Wichita, about three hours from the Kansas City metro area,” he explained. “It's called the Sunflower Community Action Network, an organization that sprung up right as ACORN folded its tent in Kansas and it appears to have the same leadership and structure.”
While the media has largely ignored this story, the limited coverage has so far painted the perpetrators as innocent protestors.
“But I want to share something with your listeners,” Kobach said. “In the left wing media has, in response to this said, ‘Oh, there's nothing to worry about. These are just protesters.’ No, these aren't protesters. These are people who have an audience of one. If they were protesting, wanting to get exposure to the public media, they would be in front of my office building. But no, they went to a quiet suburban neighborhood, stood in front of my house. No one else had to hear them, except for a few neighbors. They were trying to intimidate.”
Just as with any immigration conversation, there is an important and necessary distinction to be made between those that choose to enter the United States legally and those that do so illegally.
“Think about the brazenness of what these members of this mob are doing. The ones who are illegal aliens, they are saying: let's break the law and enter the United States illegally, then let's trespass on this elected official's property and there are a number of other criminal threats that also apply, and then let's demand amnesty,” Kobach said. “So we'll break all kind of state and federal laws, then while standing on the front porch of an elected person's house, we are going to demand through a megaphone that we be given amnesty.”
Kobach made it clear that he will not back down from his position on illegal immigration, and he challenged other elected officials to also be steadfast in their convictions.
“Our whole system depends upon elected officials responding to the needs of their constituents and not being threatened as so often happens in a third world country,” he said. “This gets to the very core of what our American system depends on, and that is we don't have mobs, we don't have this kind of pressure put on decision-makers.”
“I appreciate your bravery, Kris, and I feel for your family and your children. I really do,” Glenn said. “I know what you are going through, and you just do all that you can do. Do all that you can do. It's worth it in the end.”