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Politics

Tancredo may yet speak in 'Third World' Miami

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 17, 2006

DENVER - Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo could be headed to a city he says resembles the "Third World," thanks to a second invitation to speak in Miami.

Tancredo, a Republican from the south-Denver suburbs, sparked ire in Florida last month when he said Miami resembles a "Third World country" due in part to huge flows of immigrants.

After dueling news releases with Gov. Jeb Bush, who called Tancredo "a nut," a Miami Rotary Club invited Tancredo to explain himself in Florida. But the restaurant where Tancredo was scheduled to speak canceled the event last week, saying his appearance could conflict with scheduled holiday parties.

The smaller, 23-member Rotary Club of Miami Beach now is extending its own invitation, asking Tancredo to deliver a speech to the club.

A spokesman for the congressman says Tancredo is willing, if a time can be arranged.

Tancredo, who made the Third World remark during an interview in Palm Beach, said he was speaking of the area's crime, low graduation rates and large number of residents who speak chiefly Spanish.

Tancredo has already posted the speech he planned to deliver on his congressional Web page.

In it, he says Miami has become a magnet for illegal immigration and "the dangers that multiculturalism poses for our future as a nation."

He notes: "We must understand the limits of American generosity and the need to enforce those limits through immigration laws and secure borders. We cannot simply open the doors to everyone who wants to come to America ... Without secure borders, America will come to mirror the problems of poverty and corruption that afflict so much of the world from which people wish to escape."

[Last modified December 17, 2006, 00:50:09]