Pedro Colon

Up in northwestern Wisconsin, State Rep Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire) is running to return the State Assembly back to serving the working families of Wisconsin.

We were disappointed to hear the thoughts of his Republican opponent, Darcy Fields, bashing the "illegal immigrants" in that part of the state, whose legality Fields was able to divine by noting that families were overheard not speaking English during community parades that Fields had worked in as a clown.

If this has you thinking "what?" you are not alone.

Mr. Fields insists that he is committed to the rule of law, and his "assumption" that only law-defying families would not speak English at community parades has Fields out to save Wisconsin from becoming a "magnet state" for immigrants.

Those parade-attending, non-English-speaking law breakers better watch out for clowns.

Sigh.

Here is a partial transcription of the interview:

Darcy Fields: I don think that we should become a magnet state. I mean our country is based on the rule of law. You can understand why illegal immigrants would come here, when there's no penalty for not coming here, you know, so.

Question: Do you know what the situation is in this part of the state?

Darcy Fields: Well there are many illegal immigrants in this part of the state.

Question: And how do you know?

Darcy Fields: Well, I can tell you one, it's not a very scientific way of knowing, but I can tell one way that I know, is that I 'm a Shrine clown and the Shrine clowns raise money for the Shrine hospitals. And one of the ways we do that is that we attend parades.

And I do about 15 or 18 parades a year with the Shrine. And the streets in many of these areas where there's a high density of illegal immigrants are lined with children and families at the parade that I work with. I make balloon animals for them, and many of them can't speak English, and there's many, many, many of them.

Question: You're assuming they'll all illegal. They haven't been coming on ag or worker visa?

Darcy Fields: I think that's a reasonable assumption given the areas that I'm in, yes.