Congressman Moran
Posted in Work on 10/31/2005 10:37 pm by enjanerdCongressman Moran visited my office today. It was kind of weird. He showed up, the big-wigs did a presentation for him, then he took questions from the employees. For the most part, it was the expected questions about funding and defense budgeting and whatnot. Then, there was a question on re-districting and gerrymandering, which led to discussion about the Supreme Court nominees.
Then, someone asked about the facilities to help immigrant workers in the area, specifically what was organized in Herndon, but as it applied to this area as well. He prefaced his answer by acknowledging the likely difference in opinion with this audience, but that he felt an obligation to speak frankly. So, then he gave his response, detailing the contributions he believed were made by the local immigrant population and the benefits of aiding these people. And that’s when he got lambasted by the attendees. “They’re here illegally.” “They’re stealing our jobs!” (Really? Because last I checked, we didn’t have a significant number of first or second generation immigrants working at our company, much less illegal
immigrants.) “They’re taking away from our taxes.” “They’re stealing social security money.”
He made a quick response, reiterated that he was just stating his opinion, and while he understood where other people were coming from, he had seen the budgets and the percentage of immigrant workers in the area, and stood by his beliefs. He thanked everyone for the presentation and our contribution to the community and then ducked out.
In other news, Happy Halloween! I totally bought too much candy, but oh well. More for me. :) -j.