Ron Paul says Latinos have become ‘scapegoats’

Reporting from Las Vegas â€”  As the only Republican candidate for president to address Nevada’s oldest Latino political organization Wednesday morning, Rep. Ron Paul got high marks for bravery. All were invited; only he showed up.

He was cheered by members of Hispanics in Politics when he talked about bringing American troops home from “wars we shouldn’t be involved in.� The audience -- dozens of politically active Latinos who gathered in an eastside community center -- applauded Paul the civil libertarian when he slammed drug laws that unfairly target minorities. They even cheered his defense of the gold standard.

Immigration, however, was another story.

The 12-term Texas congressman spent the better part of a 25-minute address thinking aloud about the thorny subject. He talked about how Americans are more accepting of outsiders when the economy is good, but when trouble looms there is a search for scapegoats.

“I believe Hispanics have been used as scapegoats, to say, they’re the problem instead of being a symptom maybe of a problem with the welfare state,� Paul told the group. “In Nazi Germany they had to have scapegoats to blame and they turned on the Jews.

“Now there’s a lot of antagonism and resentment turned just automatically on immigrants,� he continued. “You say, no not immigrants, it’s just illegal immigrants. I do believe in legal immigration. I want to have a provision to obey those laws. You have to understand this in the context of the economy.�

Paul said he’s not one of those politicians who believes that “barbed-wire fences and guns on our border will solve any of our problems.� That’s not, he said, the American way. And he doesn’t think that a national identification card is the way to go.

What the country does need, he said, is “a much better immigration service� fed by more resources. Not that he’d “vote for extra money.� But he does, he told the crowd, have a plan.