CSMS Magazine Staff WritersU.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, who last month labeled Miami “a Third World country,” was forced to cancel a speaking engagement in the city yesterday after his hosts cited a violent threat and asked him not to come, according to Tancredo’s own office.”I’m obviously disappointed that a radical element in Miami was able to intimidate the hosts into rescinding their invitation for me to speak,” Tancredo said in a statement.Tom Tancredo, the self-proclaimed America’s number one patriot, who sided with the fascist group Minute Men hunting for Mexican immigrants along the border with Mexico, found it hard Wednesday to understand why his reactionary credentials were not enough to land him a triumphant entry into Miami.Of course, Miami is a bastion of reactionaries (mostly wealthy Cubans), who never stop supporting the republican agenda. But here in the “Banana Republic,” immigration issues come first than everything else, and the Cuban leadership in the city feels offended by Tancredo’s remarks.The Miami Rotary Club had invited Tancredo to the waterfront Rusty Pelican restaurant in Virginia Key, where he was to give the speech Renewing America: The Need for Assimilation. Tancredo, R-Colo., has called for severe limits on immigration to the United States.Tancredo infuriated a lot of people in South Florida last month when he implied the city had been harmed by “absorbing too many immigrants. Tancredo pointed to crime, low high school graduation rates and a resistance to English.”According to Sun-Sentinel, Carlos Espinosa, a spokesman for Tancredo, said the Rusty Pelican’s corporate office told the lawmaker Wednesday morning that it could not host the luncheon, citing at least one telephone threat. Tancredo’s office is now trying to find another restaurant.”We called about a dozen, but they either didn’t have the capacity or they didn’t want to deal with the same threats the Rusty Pelican received,” Espinosa said.In canceling his trip, Tancredo also referred to censorship in communist Cuba—an apparent swipe at South Florida’s Cuban-American community.”I knew speaking your mind could be dangerous in Havana,” he said. “I guess it’s equally dangerous to do so in Miami.”In a statement, the restaurant manager, Randy Palmer, said that the restaurant and the Rotary Club agreed to cancel the appearance.”We are not trying to make political statements,” he said. “But during this busy holiday season we have a great deal of concern for the safety of our guests and employees. We’ve decided it’s in everybody’s best interest for Congressman Tancredo not to speak at the Miami Rotary Club.”Tancredo, who himself is the son of Italian immigrants, never misses an opportunity to display his anti-immigrant rhetoric. Many compare his cultural ambivalence to a total rebuke of his own roots and to a shameful way to camouflage them. Tancredo learned the hard way that in Miami politic, political affiliation is far less important than that of ethnic brotherhood.
Colorado congressman, Tom Tancredo, shunned in Miami
