The right has been howling over a video that they say shows Harry Reid declaring that there are no illegal immigrants working as construction workers in Nevada. Of course, a close examination shows that Reid did not say that — though it’s not quite clear what he actually did say, either, or whether it was accurate.
The local CBS affiliate in Las Vegas asked Reid about illegal construction workers in the state. “I think that any information you have in that regard is absolutely without foundation,” said Reid. They then informed him of a Pew Hispanic Center study showing that 17 percent of all construction workers are in the country illegally. “That may be some place, but it’s not here in Nevada,” Reid replied.
It appears that this might not be true, either — as the station notes, Pew shows that Nevada is the state with the highest percentage of “unauthorized immigrants” in the total labor force, at 12 percent. But that’s not the approach that the GOP took.
As the NRSC tweeted: “The Latest From Harry Reid’s World – There Are No Illegal Construction Workers In Nevada.” Of course, that’s not what Reid said. He doubted that that the illegal immigration problem in construction was as bad as 17%.
So we asked the Reid campaign, would he dispute the data that illegal immigrants make up a higher percentage of Nevada’s labor force than they do in any other state?
Here’s their response — which isn’t very clear, either:
This intentional mangling of Sen. Reid’s words by Republican cheap-shot artists is pathetic. Sen. Reid was suggesting that stimulus dollars weren’t going to provide jobs for illegal immigrants because E-Verify is the law of the land for all contracts involving federal dollars. In fact, Congress actually exceeded the President’s request for E-Verify funding in the HHS Appropriations bill. Sen. Reid continues to reach out to Republicans and Democrats to pass comprehensive immigration reform that will secure our borders, crack down on employers that hire illegally, and bring 11 million people out of the shadows.
