Congressional Candidate Wants To Deport Latino Farmworkers, Bus Blacks To Pick Crops

Congressional candidate Jack Davis shocked local Republican leaders in a recent interview when he suggested that Latino farmworkers be deported — and that African-Americans from the inner city be bused to farm country to pick the crops.

Several sources who were in the Feb. 20 endorsement interview with Davis confirmed his comments, which echo those he made to the Tonawanda News in 2008, when he said: “We have a huge unemployment problem with black youth in our cities. Put them on buses, take them out there [to the farms] and pay them a decent wage; they will work.”

When Davis repeated those sentiments in the recent interview, the Republican leaders — who later delivered the party endorsement for the vacant seat in the 26th Congressional District to Assemblywoman Jane L. Corwin of Clarence — said they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

“I was thunderstruck,” said Amherst GOP Chairman Marshall Wood. “Maybe in 1860 that might have been seen by some as an appropriate comment, but not now.”

Davis spokesman W. Curtis Ellis defended Davis’ comments by saying, “It may not be politically correct and it may not be racially correct, but when you have African American people in Buffalo who do not have jobs and are out of work, why are you bringing people into this country illegally to take jobs?” Ellis asked.

Davis is one of several candidates battling to replace coozehound congressman Rep. Chris Lee, who resigned last month after getting caught out there sending shirtless pictures to a woman on Craigslist — who wasn’t his wife.

When asked before the event about the comments he made, Davis replied: “It’s politics.” He did not address the remarks when he spoke to those assembled at the event.

During the Feb. 20 endorsement interview with the district’s Republican leaders, Davis “repeatedly almost disqualified himself” by contradicting typical party positions, said Gordon Brown, the Wyoming County GOP chairman.

“The most racist part was where he said he was busing the blacks in to pick the vegetables,” Brown said.

Davis’ comment came in response to a question about immigration, a major issue in the rural parts of the 26th District, where many farmers rely on migrant workers — who are supposed to be on a temporary work visa — to pick the crops.

When Davis made his comment, “the room sort of went silent,” Brown said. “It was like: Did I just hear that?”

Davis, an Akron industrialist, ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2004, 2006 and 2008, and was seeking the GOP nod this time.

Spurned by the party, he is now collecting signatures in hopes of appearing as the Tea Party candidate in the May 24 special election.

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