Blood on our borders, guest blog by David

This week, Mexican-American comedian and actor, Paul Rodriguez made comments on CNN regarding America’s border crisis and the thousands of children caught in limbo. His strong stance against illegal immigration of any kind came as a shock to many of his fans.

Last night, in light of the controversy, Paul gave an exclusive interview on Estrella TV’s Noticiero con Enrique Gratas to elaborate on his statements. The entire segment (in Spanish) is available at: http://videos.estrellatv.com/video/paul-rodriguez-immigration-responde-a-las-criticas-sobre-inmigracion.

Also below are key statements from his interview. The full transcript in English is available upon request.

ENRIQUE: Many consider your stance is anti-Latino. How do you respond to this accusation?

PAUL: It is not anti-Latino I just care about the lives of these children. My words have no weight on immigration if it was for me they could come, give them life, a home, and education to all of them but the problem is so difficult that neither Democrats nor Republicans have found a solution. I just say that I got into this because of the documentary we making. See the danger they encounter. I ask these parents, would you send your little girl boarding a train called ‘la bestia’ from Quintana Roo to here more than 2000 miles? Who's going to care of her? There are many, many of them are raped.

ENRIQUE: Paul, don’t you think that these kids have the right to stay?

PAUL: Those who are here? Absolutely. The problem with that is the message that we send to other countries. There will be another 60,000 children coming from other countries who will risk their life from Yucatan all the way here? Many of them are not going to make it and we are talking about hundreds of children.

ENRIQUE:  Who’s blame of this crisis occurring and how to solve?

PAUL: Mr Obama, has to resolve this crisis. His  Government failed,  in my opinion because,  his not working in the  migration program, he has to negotiate with the Governments of El Salvador and Honduras and we have to send help to them,  there so they do not risk their lives.

ENRIQUE:  The solution is immigration reform, and to strengthen the borders?

PAUL: Obama has betrayed us. Since he won't be re-elected, he does not care. I blame the Republicans and the Democrats. They take care more action from the things that are happening in the Middle East, when there is more blood spilled here in our borders.