Sheriff McGettigan is running for Atlantic County NJ Executive. During a candidates forum, an audience member asks the Sheriff how his department deals with illegal immigrants in his cust.ody. A part of the exchange is here.
McGettigan: Wetbacks, as far as we were concerned, meant somebody that was just new into the country. I don't know what the term means today.
[current Atlantic County Executive Dennis ] Levinson: It's a pejorative term.
Audience member: It's not a slander; people make a slander out of it.
McGettigan (responding to Levinson): The Bajorans? Weren't they on Star Trek?
When I was a youngster, there were ads on TV reminding aliens that they needed to register at a gov't office. Mind you, the original Star Trek was on at prime time, and I was confused about the term "alien". I thought that Klingons and Vulcans and Romulans living in the USA needed to register with the gov't. I thought aliens were people from other planets, not people from other countries.
Perhaps McGettigan is as confused as I was.
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