Arizona Republican Idiotically Assumes YMCA Campers On Bus Are Migrant Children

On Tuesday morning, Republican Congressional candidate Adam Kwasman attended a protest against housing migrant children from Central America in Oracle, AZ. Protesters gathered in Oracle with the hopes of stopping a bus full of detainees who were to be transported to a boys’ ranch in the area. Obviously, the idea behind the protest was to create a media spectacle like the one seen in Murrieta, CA earlier this month, where protesters successfully stopped buses full of migrant children from reaching a detention center. In this instance, the bus never showed up. The problem for Kwasman is that he thought it did.

While making a speech for the cameras, Kwasman suddenly stopped as he was told that a bus was approaching. In the hopes of getting his moment in the sun. Kwasman raced over to the bus, along with other protesters. Law enforcement on the scene allowed the bus to move through and didn’t allow the Kwasman or the protesters to stop it. (Of course, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu was directly responsible for the protest occurring in the first place, but I digress.) While the bus was at the scene, Kwasman sent the following tweet, since deleted. Thankfully, the website Politwoops saved the tweet for posterity.

Kwasman rushed back to Phoenix with the hopes of making political hay over the fact that he had attempted to stop a bus packed with illegal immigrants that the people of Oracle did not want in their area. Unfortunately for Kwasman, News 12 reporter Braham Resnick had to break the news to Kwasman that the bus actually didn’t have migrant children in it. Nope, it was full of children on a YMCA camping trip. Resnick had to interrupt Kwasman with this little tidbit as Kwasman was grandstanding about what he had just witnessed in Oracle.

Below is video of the interaction, courtesy of Arizona Central, News 12’s website:

Right after Resnick told Kwasman that the bus had YMCA campers on it, Kwasman tried to cover his tracks on Twitter. He deleted the initial tweet and then sent the two following tweets.

Last tweet not the bus of illegal immigrant children. Thank God.

— Adam Kwasman (@AdamKwasman) July 15, 2014

I apologize for the confusion. That was my error

— Adam Kwasman (@AdamKwasman) July 15, 2014

Kwasman is running a longshot campaign in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District to unseat incumbent Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. He is facing current Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin in the GOP primary. Obviously, his initial hope with this stunt was that he’d be able to appeal to the far-right of the GOP base in the district and get himself some national exposure. Well, he got the national publicity he so desperately wanted.

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Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site's (@PoliticusSports).

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