By Dan E. Way

dway@heraldsun.com; 918-1035

CHAPEL HILL -- Making no apologies for her conservative stance on immigration policy while attacking "cowardice" in Washington to enact meaningful reform, political activist Angela "Bay" Buchanan said the country is seething over the waves of undocumented foreigners who illegally enter the country.

"I have never seen so much anger in the electorate in my entire life," Buchanan told an audience of about 75 people in the UNC's Frank Porter Graham Student Union Thursday night.

Brushing aside critics who claim tough immigration enforcement is a marker of bigotry, Buchanan said, "What is racist about keeping your borders secure?"

And she turned the tables on one student who implied there was irony in modern restrictive immigration policies because America's early European colonists subdued an existing culture in a new world to create this country.

"I think the case could be made that the Indians made a mistake by letting us in," and that supports her arguments, Buchanan said. She also noted the "amazing war going on" at the Mexican border.

"Their drug runners and their gangs, they're coming into this country," she said. The Mexican government is "losing the war and our border is wide open, and that is a national security threat."

Buchanan, former U.S. treasurer and now chairwoman of Team America, an organization opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants, was hosted by the UNC student group Youth for Western Civilization. Unlike earlier speeches at UNC by former Congressmen Tom Tancredo and Virgil Goode, Thursday's lecture was not punctuated by vigorous protests. Only an occasional limp retort was voiced over her remarks.

Buchanan noted that the U.S. issues 137,000 new visas every month.

"We're losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands every month," she said. "It's time to stop the visa program.

"There's a reason corporations want foreign workers with visas, and don't fool yourself about this. They can get them for half the price."

Part of the anger she's hearing in town halls she hosts around the country was reflected in Charlotte by the president of the city's black chamber of commerce, she said.

"They had really good businesses . . . and then came the illegal immigration problem. He told me those businesses are all gone. Lost ..." because the black, labor-intensive firms could not compete with the low wages paid to illegal immigrants. At the same time, schools are overburdened, hospitals are crowded and some are actually closing because of inability to handle the deluge.

She blames those problems on elected leaders not getting tough on immigration enforcement, which is popular with the American people.

"It needed to be addressed by those cowards in Washington" but was not, she said.

Felix Chu of Chapel Hill, a 33-year-old UNC graduate, said Buchanan "was very articulate" and he supported her positions on immigration and maintaining a common heritage and language.

"When people say celebrate diversity, that means you have nothing in common," Chu said. It is amusing that liberal Americans who vigorously promote a diverse culture, ironically, often refer to China and its values as a country to be admired, yet "ninety-five percent of the people" are homogenous, he said.