Talk Radio Crowd Pumps Up Volume on Immigration

Los Angeles Times Article:

Talk-radio crowd pumps up the volume on immigration
Hosts and listeners gather in the capital to voice their views on a crackdown and lobby lawmakers for change.
By Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writer
April 28, 2007

WASHINGTON — John and Ken, the Los Angeles-area radio talk-show hosts, were on the air. They discussed claims by the Homeland Security secretary that more guards had been stationed along the Mexico border. "Outright blatant lies!" John said. They trashed the Border Patrol chief. "A cardboard bureaucrat," he added.

From the back of a crowded hotel conference room here, where the pair was broadcasting on KFI-AM, one listener couldn't contain himself. "You betcha!" he roared, and the sympathetic audience erupted in laughter.

For four days this week, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou joined more than 30 other radio hosts from across the country, broadcasting live from Washington to demand immigration laws that secure the border, punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, and deny citizenship to immigrants who sneaked into the country.

They brought with them a chorus of more than 600 listeners, who lobbied lawmakers and provided a refrain of cheers and groans during the daily 5 a.m.-to-midnight broadcast marathon.

Though immigration-crackdown advocates on talk radio can often be brash and alarmist, these listeners appeared calmer and gentler.

It's not clear how much of an impact these listener-lobbyists will have on the debate in Washington. But as Congress prepares to again take up immigration, in May, there is no mistaking their determination.

"We will make Congress listen and hear," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that helped organize the event, the second of its kind.

Those who made the lobbying trip spanned old to young. They wore their patriotism on their sleeves, in the form of American flag clothing and pins. Many were military veterans. Most, but not all, were white — and they bristled at charges of racism. They said the accusation was meant to silence them.

"Brown, black, white, they're all here," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a firebrand critic of illegal immigration.

Read more here

You can listen to John and Ken online live everyday 3-7pm PST:

http://www.kfi640.com/main.html

QueMan