Less than 24-hours after Texas State Senator Dan Patrick released a video asserting his opposition to illegal immigration, the candidate for Texas Lt. Governor stands accused of having hired four illegal aliens in a bar he previously owned. Earlier today Sen. Patrick told the Weatherford Democrat he is proud to wear the title of toughest guy on immigration running for any state office. On Patrick’s campaign website he describes himself as “Dan Patrick Border Champion”.
Now Dan Patrick stands accused by his formerly illegal alien, now U.S. Citizen, former employee of not only hiring him and three other illegal immigrants, but hiring them with false documents and even allegedly offering to sneak one of them back from the Texas/Mexico border, past inland security checkpoints.
In a Dallas Morning News report, “Miguel “Mike” Andrade, 48, of Missouri City, told The Dallas Morning News and Houston’s KTRK-TV that he, his cousin and two other men from Mexico worked at one of Patrick’s five sports bars that operated in the Houston area until 1986.”
At that time, there were no penalties involved in hiring someone in this residing in the U.S. illegally according to the report.
The report explains:
“Andrade agreed that a manager under Patrick hired him and the other three men, but said that after a few months Patrick knew that the four workers didn’t have permission to be in the country-because he told Patrick.
“He said Patrick was a compassionate employer. He said Patrick offered sympathy over their anguish at living so far from their loved ones and being constantly in fear of being deported.
“He was real, real, real kind with us … real good with the Hispanic community. He was really wishing (he had) some kind of power…to help us to work in this country and have a better life,” said Andrade, who recalled that he was hired at the West Houston sports bar in 1983 or 1984.
Patrick responded to the Dallas Morning News report stating, “he only ‘vaguely’ remembers Andrade at one of his establishments. He said he had nothing to do with the hiring and that managers at each location handled employment decisions.
“We had literally hundreds of full-time and part-time employees. It’s a transient business and many young people come and go,” Patrick said in a statement.
Patrick’s opponents responded quickly. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson was quoted in the same story calling Patrick a hypocrite.
“You shouldn’t be one thing when you’re running for office and be something else when you’re not,” he said, referring to Patrick. “Here we have the true … hypocrisy of the past versus present political endeavor.”
Patterson said an investigator his campaign hired located Andrade last week and that he signed a statement about working for Patrick in Houston.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, also one of Patrick’s opponents responded to an inquiry from Breitbart Texas stating, “The fact that Dan Patrick knowingly hired illegal immigrants to work at his sports bar, his personal bankruptcy in which he failed to pay his debts, his years of tax liens, and law suits for failure to pay property taxes disqualifies him from running for Lt. Governor,” Staples said. “Texans deserve better.”
A spokesman for Lt. Governor David Dewhurst’s campaign responded to the inquiry from Breitbart Texas. “Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst has never knowingly employed an illegal immigrant,” said campaign spokesman Travis Considine. “If re-elected, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst will push for legislation mandating the use of E-Verify to ensure only documented workers are hired by Texas businesses.”
The Dallas Morning News article states that Andrade claims that Patrick wrote a letter of recommendation to help Andrade establish temporary residency after the Reagan Amnesty was passed in 1986. He also claims that Sen. Patrick offered to help him visit his sick mother in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Andrade told the Dallas Morning News:
“He said [is there] anything I can do so you can go and see your mom? I don’t want to see you suffer,” Andrade said.
Patrick then said, “I can go and bring you to here,” according to Andrade, who said he believed that meant Patrick could drive him to Houston past U.S. inland border checkpoints.
Andrade said he declined to make the trip, for fear he’d be caught and Patrick would get in trouble.
Sen. Patrick denies the claim that he offered to smuggle Andrade past the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoints.
Andrade was asked why he was coming forward with this information. The Dallas Morning News reveals:
“Andrade recounted how he received a phone call in 2006 when Patrick’s first won his state Senate seat. It was from his cousin, Guadalupe Andrade, whom he had helped land a job at Patrick’s establishment more than two decades earlier.”
“He said Dan Patrick is on TV saying bad things about us,” Miguel Andrade said. “When I see how he was talking bad things about us, I was real surprised real surprised.”
Patrick has made illegal immigration and border security a cornerstone of his campaign to replace Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. Quoting Patrick’s website again, “Dan Patrick Border Champion”.
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