Immigrant activists call out 'Illegal Alien' costumes

[Natural Elements]

Immigrant rights activists are calling on U.S. retailers to stop selling two controversial "Illegal Alien" costumes that have surfaced for Halloween, saying the outfits are a broadside attack on illegal immigrants.

The "Illegal Alien" costume was being offered by retailers including Target, Walgreens and Amazon.com.

The "Illegal Alien Adult Costume," manufactured by Forum novelties, includes an orange jumpsuit, similar to prison garb, with "Illegal Alien" stamped in black across the chest; a space alien mask; and a fake Green Card. The "Illegal Alien Mask with Hat" also includes a space alien mask, this time with a dark handlebar mustache and a baseball cap.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said it began receiving e-mails from concerned legal immigrants on Friday. In response, CHIRLA wrote a letter asking several retailers, including Target, Walgreens, and Amazon.com, to stop offering the costume.

As of Saturday afternoon, Target had pulled the products, and some links to the costumes on other sites were no longer functional.

Target said the "Illegal Alien" costume was inadvertently uploaded to its Web site due to a data entry error.

"It is never our intent to offend the consumers with the products we offer," a company statement said.

The makers of the costumes could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/17/ill...ume/index.html

[robjones]

Immigrant rights activists are calling on U.S. retailers to stop selling two controversial "Illegal Alien" costumes that have surfaced for Halloween, saying the outfits are a broadside attack on illegal immigrants.

Shame on Target. If people let them get away with making fun of illegal immigrants, next they'll wanna engage in broadside attacks on others that break laws... drunk drivers, petty thieves, shoplifters....

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by robjones

Shame on Target. If people let them get away with making fun of illegal immigrants, next they'll wanna engage in broadside attacks on others that break laws... drunk drivers, petty thieves, shoplifters....

I love you, dude. That's too funny.

[Allen Farlow]

Any retailer that stops marketing those costumes is only caving into Hispanics to save their bottom line. They know they make a ton of money from Hispanics in the United States and Mexico.

Personally, I say good! We SHOULD be making fun of them and ridiculing them, but instead we welcome them with open arms and think everything is fine until we lose our jobs to an illegal immigrant because they'll work for less and won't say anything out of fear of being deported.