Offering comments on behalf of outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar Wednesday, President Obama suggested the Hispanic Cabinet member is more authentically American than New England's Pilgrims. 

"His ancestors were here before the Mayflower set sail," Obama noted.

Obama talked about Salazar's (pictured, left) Spanish roots and segued from that to focus on how hard he's "working to get immigration reform passed." 

The President then repeated a phrase common among Nativists, insinuating that lands belong to ethnicities and not countries: "[Salazar and] his family did not cross the border, the border crossed them. And that's why, when I needed somebody to lead Interior, I didn't have to look very far."