DNC Launches New Ad Campaign for 'Tough and Smart' Immigration Reform

WASHINGTON, DC - The Democratic National Committee (DNC) today unveiled an advertising campaign that sets the record straight on where Democrats and Republicans stand on immigration reform. In a new Spanish language radio ad, Democrats hold Republicans accountable for trying to criminalize immigrants, doctors, and churches, and for blocking real progress on immigration reform. The ad campaign coincides with Congress's return next week.

The ads come as an editorial in today's Washington Post also holds Republicans accountable, noting that "House Republicans - backed by President Bush - are to blame for the mean-spirited, enforcement-only bill that they passed last year." [Washington Post, 4/19/06]

The DNC's campaign features a new ad in Spanish entitled "Tough and Smart" which will air on radio stations nationally through Univision Radio affiliates, as well as in targeted markets in Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. The campaign will also include English radio ads on Caribbean-American radio stations, print ads in non-Hispanic ethnic media across the country including Asian American, Irish, and Polish, as well as Spanish-language print ads in Hispanic newspapers.

"While Democratic leaders want a comprehensive immigration reform bill that is both tough and smart, the Republican Party is offering nothing but more of the same dishonest and divisive rhetoric," said DNC Chairman Howard Dean announcing the ad campaign. "Democrats will continue to fight for real immigration reform that secures and strengthens our borders, protects the jobs and wages of American workers, and allows immigrants who pay taxes and obey the law to earn the responsibilities of U.S. citizenship."

Dean also emphasized that the DNC will continue to reach out aggressively to Americans of every background to set the record straight on immigration reform. Dean highlighted the DNC's efforts to reach out to Caribbean, Irish, Polish, Asian American, Pacific Islander and other communities in which legal immigrants have been adversely affected by the divisive anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republican Party.

"The fact that Americans of every background joined the hundreds of thousands of people who rallied in recent weeks in support of comprehensive immigration was a triumph of America's great diversity," said Dean. "No matter their backgrounds or their ethnicity, their faith or their politics, every American understands that the Republican politics of distortion and distraction is wrong for America.

"It's time for the President and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to show real leadership and stop denying the American people a victory on comprehensive immigration reform."