Immigration Politics vs. Reality: McCain's Monstrous Lie

Stewart J. Lawrence: McCain's Monstrous Lie: "John McCain's attempt to blame illegal immigrants for the wild fires raging in Arizona is only the latest attempt by the Republican Senator to scapegoat immigrants for America's border problems and to distance himself from his one-time role as the Senate’s most visible champion of comprehensive immigration reform

But it's also monstruous hypocrisy.

Unbeknown to most Americans, anywhere from one-third to one-half of the contract workers who perform the grueling and dangerous work of fighting wildfires out West are the very illegal immigrants that McCain now chooses to blame for starting these fires....

According to a 2006 report by the US Forest Service, illegal immigrants have been involved in fire-fighting nationwide for several decades. But their involvement has spiked dramatically since 2001 when unusually large wild fires began raging out of control in California. The federal government, facing budget cuts, quickly realized that it didn't have enough native-born workers available to man the fire lines. So, in a classic case of "deniable" out-sourcing, it turned to private contractors to find willing recruits."