I knew the GOP was hard up. But I had no idea it was this bad.
According to this quite hilarious article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the California GOP has hired as its chief operating officer, an Australian national who the Department of Homeland Security has been trying to deport for repeated immigration violations. As recently as Februrary, Michael Kamburowski, was working, rather haplessly, as a real estate agent in the Domincan Republic until he “ran away without mentioning anything to us,” according to his one-time boss, Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty, in the resort town of Punta Cana. (Said his Re/Max bio: “With his attention to detail, laid-back yet professional approach, and sense of humor, Michael will smoothen the road to your dream property in Punta Cana.”)
Perhaps it is somehow implicitly redundant to note that in the second half of the 1990s Kamburowski was working for Grover Norquist on immigration policy, tort reform and ‘paycheck protection’ before becoming the executive director of Norquist’s Reagan Legacy Project.
Along the way there were a couple of hasty marriages leading shortly to his new brides submitting “Petition for Alien Relative” forms to get him citizenship, various stints as an “aspiring actor” and even a stay at the Wackenhut Correctional Facility in Jamaica, New York courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security.
In addition to his work running the California Republican party he is also suing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for “significant financial hardship” and “severe emotional stress and embarrassment” for trying to have him deported.
Apparently, this wasn’t the last of the CA GOP’s overseas outreach.
Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring, who hired the afore-mocked Kamburowski, claimed he was not able to find a qualified political director for the California party among the three-hundred-odd million citizens of the United States. Nehring used a H1B visa (the type commonly used by high-tech companies when say they need to hire a foreigner with a skill not possessed by any American) to Christopher Matthews, a Canadian citizen, with no experience in California politics.
