Olivo brings personal experience to immigration issue
Congressional hopeful Brock Olivo says that a personal stake in immigration won’t stop him from taking a tough stance on those in the country illegally. 
The former Mizzou gridiron star is the great-grandson of Italian immigrants.
After his stint in the NFL, Olivo worked for the National Italian American Foundation in Washington. There, he met his current wife, Samuela, herself an Italian who came to the U.S. for an internship and is now in the process of becoming a naturalized American citizen.
Still, the GOP contender sticks to the party line when it comes to the hot-button political issue.
“If immigrants come here legally, they should be allowed to stay and learn, work, or live as they have applied to do so,” Olivo wrote in a note to supporters this week. “If they choose not to play by the rules, they should be treated like anyone else who has broken the law.”
Olivo says he favors a strong border presence, taking it a step further than many by calling for stepped-up security in places most people don’t think of when talking about immigration — Native American reservations.
“These areas are vast and offer very little security due to a lack of resources, not a lack of will,” Olivo says. “I have met with military personnel that have decades of border patrol experience and every one of them points out the lack of security within the Indian nations.”
I’m not sure if there are any Indian reservations in Olivo’s district or in Missouri at all. (Maybe on the Oklahoma border?)
Even so, perhaps it’s a testament to the political process that Olivo’s candidacy has moved from novelty status to serious discussion of the issues.
This guy has never even voted.
Jake, this is not news. This is standard mass email material. Why the free publicity for this guy?
Just because YOU are helping to spread his message, doesn’t mean there is “serious discussion of the issues.”
“they should be treated like anyone else who has broken the law.”
You mean like Scooter Libby?
OK, Bush crime family jokes aside what does that even mean? Most people upon their first crime conviction are not kicked out of their home, separated from their children. Wait I got It….
“They should be treated like all other poor people whom break the law.”
That must be what he meant to say.
Actually RM, I think Jake has a bone to pick with Olivo or Olivo-like people. He was the bulldog that broke the no voting story and now he refers to Olivo’s wife as his “current” wife and then questions Olivo’s mentioning of illegals passing through Indian Reservations because of lack of security with a silly “do we have reservations here?”
I won’t vote for Olivo, but I don’t think the voting issue is that big of a deal. The dude spent several years as a journeyman football player not knowing what city he was going to be in next. He also spent time abroad which pretty much wipes out local elections. Maybe he didn’t favor Bush/Gore or Kerry/Bush and decided to sit those out. Olivo not voting is pretty much a non-issue too.
RM, should we give all criminals a free pass on their first offense?
An illegal doesn’t have a home in the US. They are here illegally so everything they do thereafter is also illegal. Period.
Rich, Poor, Black, White, Green doesn’t matter one iota. Illegal is illegal.
So let’s see … we can elect a football player who never voted until after he was running for Congress, or a distinguished physician who obtained a law degree at the same time as he did his medical residency. Bonehead or genius. Wow, that’s a tough choice.
I should have said I wouldn’t vote for Olivo if he were in my district. He isn’t.
Nick, not sure, but Olivo probably earned a degree while earning MU millions of dollars. To consider someone a bonehead because they were a football player is childish. Lynn Swann ran for governor of PA, JC Watts was a Congressman and bonehead football player. Gerald Ford was a bonehead football player. Steve Largent was a bonehead football player. Tom Osborne was a bonehead player and coach.
Amazed - I don’t consider him a bonehead because he was a football player, I consider him a bonehead because he is a bonehead. I’ve heard he’s a very nice guy, and that’s all very well. But I can think of few people less qualified to serve as a Congressman than Brock Olivo. And yes, he seems to be a bonehead.
Actually the whole field of them are hardly worth the effort. That’s why I’m voting Independent in this one. http://justinjohnsonforcongress.wordpress.com/
Justin is the only one who is running who would truly represent the district.
I’ll take Olivo and his personal experience as part of an immigrant family/husband of an immigrant wife and his empty voting record any day over Dr. Onder and his quest to keep me and all other women of child bearing age from making their own health care decisions. No doubt Olivo knows better what it’s like to be an immigrant in this country than Onder knows what it’s like to face an unintended and unwelcome pregnancy (from the real business end of the stirrups). What distinguishes Onder as a physician is his his mindset that women are incapable of making the most basic and profoundly personal decisions about the fundamental direction of their lives and of assessing their individual capacities to bring another person into the world and manage both lives with some shred of dignity.
Boy, Reasonable Woman, you sure used a bunch of useless words when all you had to say was, “I won’t vote for Onder because he doesn’t favor abortion.”
Nick, have you met the guy? How much do you know about him that leads you to believe he’s a bonehead? I understand he isn’t your candidate of choosing, but if you don’t know much or anything about a guy, how does that make him a bonehead? Lacy Clay is a Congressman, so we already know brains are NOT a requirement for the job.