Death threat prompts Tancredo to cancel Miami speech

Death threat prompts Tancredo to cancel Miami speech
'What is more 'Third World country' than threatening to bomb the place?'

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., whose comment to WND that Miami was a "Third World country" sparked a war of words with Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush, has canceled a planned speech in this South Florida city.

"What is more 'Third World country' than threatening to bomb the place?" Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa told WTVJ-TV, in reference to bomb threats for this week's event at the Miami Rotary Club.

The local CBS affiliate reported: "The manager of the restaurant where Tancredo was to speak, the Rusty Pelican on Key Biscayne, said Wednesday that the owners didn't want him to appear on Thursday in order to keep up the integrity and reputation of the business. The manager also said staff members objected to working the party where his immigration talk was supposed to be held, some customers threatened to boycott the restaurant, and the restaurant had received bomb threats."

Tancredo's office is still considering whether or not he'll come to Miami at all because his office has also received death threats.

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country," Tancredo told WND in a Nov. 19 story as he lamented how the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration. "You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

Gov. Bush then responded with a letter addressed to Tancredo's Washington office that, ''The bottom line is Miami is a wonderful city filled with diversity and heritage that we choose to celebrate, not insult. Miami has been my home for years and I am looking forward to returning there in January.''

"Florida, like America itself, attracts people from many places, and immigrants always bring diverse cultures, races, and religious beliefs to our shores," Tancredo wrote back to Bush. "It is precisely because of these diverse origins, cultures and languages that Florida and America depend on a few things to hold us together. One of the most important things that contributes to cohesion and not fragmentation is the English language and the evidence suggests that this is something that fewer and fewer Miamians share."

He also said it's apparent fewer and fewer residents of that city even think of themselves as Americans.

"This fact was noted recently by Lisandro Perez who was identified in a TIME magazine article as 'a Cuban-born immigrant and head of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.' He was quoted as extolling the virtue of Miami as a city where 'there is no pressure to be an American,'" Tancredo wrote.

"I certainly understand and appreciate your need and desire to try and create the illusion of Miami as a multiethnic 'All American' city," he said. "However, it is neither naïve nor insulting to call attention to a real problem that cannot be easily dismissed through politically correct happy talk."

"Do you not worry that Miami's 'sanctuary city' rules serve as a magnet for illegal aliens and undercut the state's otherwise sound law enforcement policies? Do you worry that a recent random community survey on 'Miami values' found that corruption was listed as the number one 'value' by residents?

"Governor with all due respect, I have simply said something most people – even in Florida if our calls and e-mails are a measurement of sentiment – believe is true. I have no doubt that people of wealth can still lead a comfortable and pleasant life in Miami, but ask yourself why ordinary middle class citizens are leaving in such high numbers," Tancredo said.