KFI AM 640 More Stimulating Talk Radio

THE AMERICAS: 'Shock-jock' radio host calls the tune in US debate over policies on illegal immigration

By Christopher Parkes
Financial Times; Jul 10, 2004

California's smouldering debate over the costs and dangers of illegal immigration was fanned this week in an extraordinary exchange between Asa Hutchinson, the mild-mannered second-in-command at the Department of Homeland Security, and a big-mouth Los Angeles radio talk show host.

Speaking on KFI 640, Mr Hutchinson said Border Patrol officers stopped 1m people crossing into the US from Mexico last year, and had recently been picking up 16,000 a week. Official estimates say about 20 per cent of people trying to cross without papers get through.

But Mr Hutchinson had little further opportunity to penetrate a blizzard of rhetoric from "shock-jock" John Kobylt.

The 30-minute appearance by such a senior official in a forum where "guests" are routinely greeted with a verbal thrashing was the high- point of a month-long campaign by Mr Kobylt and his colleague Ken Chiampou to reinstate Border Patrol "sweeps" hunting undocumented residents in urban areas near Los Angeles.

Mr Hutchinson's surprise intervention suggested a rising awareness in the administration that persistent concern over illegal immigration could have significant implications for the president's re-election campaign in the south-west.

The figures provided by Mr Hutchinson appeared to support charges by Mr Kobylt and Mr Chiampou that the border is so easily penetrated that it could provide a ready conduit for infiltrating terrorists.

But the issue in the one-sided discussion with Mr Hutchinson was the show hosts' demand that the Border Patrol must be allowed to resume "doing its job".

The subject was an unusual venture away from the Mexican border during one week in June by a 12-man roaming team of patrol officers. They rounded up 420 undocumented aliens before being called to heel by Mr Hutchinson's office on the grounds that while they were legal, the raids had not been authorized.

All control measures needed to be "co-ordinated", he told Mr Kobylt, who simply snorted.

The sweeps were stopped following protests from Latino groups, alleging racial profiling (all those apprehended were believed to be of Mexican or Latin American origin) and media reports that many people were afraid to shop, go to work or send their children to school.

Mainstream media interest faded quickly, but Mr Kobylt and Mr Chiampou, whose show provides the most popular drive-time listening in southern California, persisted, airing complaints from aggrieved patrol officers, who claimed to have received 5,000 of messages of support from the public.

Courtesy of the radio hosts, who had put Mr Hutchinson's e-mail address and telephone number on their website and repeated it on air, the undersecretary had been swamped by thousands of messages of protest.

"I have enjoyed hearing from them," he said in the radio conversation.

However, at his request, a White House official this week asked the station to remove his contact details to ease the jam and prevent further interference with his work. Immediately following the Thursday evening exchange, the address and number were promoted to headline status on http://www.johnandkenshow.com/.

The duo, whose repertoire includes taking to the streets with a megaphone to converse with reluctant participants, have consistently played on the cost to the public purse of "illegals", claiming the 2.3m adults plus their offspring in southern California cost taxpayers $5bn (€4bn, £2.7bn) a year.

Official figures suggest there may be 7m undocumented aliens in the state whose official population is 35m.

Pressed repeatedly to say whether the sweeps would be resumed, and ordered to admit that "zero" Californian companies and farms had been raided to seek out undocumented workers, Mr Hutchinson demurred.

"I am not going to confirm that statistic you are citing," he said, though federal funding for worksite enforcement had been doubled.

Struggling to make it plain that the administration's priority was to seal the borders rather than look for easy targets living and working in the US, Mr Hutchinson defined Washington's dilemma.

"If you cannot protect the border from economic migrants, we cannot protect our border from terrorists," he said. "It's really difficult to have a logical conversation with you on this subject."

"You're telling me," yelled Mr Kobylt.

Obviously ill-prepared, and apparently briefed by aides unversed in the manners of in-your-face radio, Mr Hutchinson floundered.

"When al-Qaeda strikes us again we're going to find out these guys snuck in over the border," said Mr Kobylt.

"You are definitely demagogueing this issue," the sweet-voiced Arkansan replied. Enforcement of the law would continue on the borders and in the interior, but he was not going to divulge his plans on the radio, he said.

He denied his interrogator an answer to his most pressing question: would the sweeps start again on the streets, workplaces and schools of Los Angeles? That is where most illegales go about their lives in orderly and civil fashion, doing odd jobs, nannying, and mowing lawns for rock-bottom pay.

As Mr Kobylt pressed the off-line button, he summed up: "Obviously talking a bag of wind . . . rambling and babbling."

But the last word went to his producer, on air to report his parting words with the eminent guest. Mr Hutchinson had told him, he said: "That was the most unruly host and interview I have ever been on."


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