Cinco de Mayo Ad Targets McCain's Support for Arizona Immigration Law
This Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday widely celebrated in the United States on May 5, Republican Sen. John McCain is taking heat for his position on an Arizona immigration law that has angered Latinos across the country.
The liberal political action committee Americans for America launched three radio ads today that are critical of Arizona's new immigration law, the Huffington Post reports, and one ad takes aim at McCain for calling the law a "good tool."
The law in question, which has prompted protests across the country, would require immigrants to carry documents verifying their immigration status. It would also require police officers to question a person about his or her immigration status during a "lawful stop" if there is "reasonable suspicion" that person may be in the country illegally.
After the initial backlash, the state legislature modified the law in an attempt to address some of the controversy it has created -- but the changes did not mollify critics.
The new ad targeting McCain, which takes a joking but critical tone, is set at a university Cinco de Mayo party broken up by the Arizona state police.
"We have reasonable suspicion to believe you are illegal aliens," an officer says in the ad. "You are listening to Mexican music, drinking Mexican drinks and speaking Spanish."
A narrator continues, "This is no joke to your classmates who are now criminal suspects just for being Latino." The ad urges listeners to ask McCain to oppose the new law.
Americans for America is releasing a similar ad in Colorado targeting Senate candidate Jane Norton, the Huffington Post reports, as well as a bilingual ad in Las Vegas urging Latinos to vote this November.
"Now in Arizona it's practically a crime to be Latino," a narrator says in both English and Spanish in the Las Vegas ad. "But we are not powerless."
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