'Tequila party' comes to Kansas

[pampango]

http://www.kansas.com/2011/06/05/1879157/tequila-party-comes-to-kansas.html

"We're starting to look at legislators who are anti-immigrant-anything and cater to the tea party," said Rep. Louis Ruiz, D-Kansas City, who will be leading the effort at the state level.

While it was mainly organized around fighting taxes and national health care, the predominantly white tea party movement lent strong support to efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.

The tequila party movement was born in frustration with an Arizona immigration law requiring police to check citizenship of people they suspect are in the country illegally. Activists have expressed concern that the law — currently on hold while facing court challenges — could lead to the splitting of families and to citizens and legal immigrants of Hispanic descent being unfairly detained and questioned.

Ruiz said he was contacted by the tequila party after criticizing fellow Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, over a remark Peck made in a legislative hearing on a bill to authorize sharpshooters to kill feral pigs from helicopters. Peck's comment —"if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a (solution) to our illegal immigration problem" — drew national attention to Kansas. Democrats' demand to censure Peck went largely ignored.