The issue of illegal immigrants and the jobs they have in America is one Congress should take seriously. But when Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert made his cameo appearance on Capitol Hill, the environment was anything but that.
Colbert joined United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez who launched a campaign over the summer called “Take Our Jobs.” The initiative challenged Americans across the country to replace migrant field workers. Rodriguez said that the campaign sparked millions of inquiries but yielded just seven Americans who made it to the fields.
Colbert, who along with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), took Rodriguez’s offer for a day to gain perspective as to why Americans were not leaping off their chairs for the opportunity to work on America’s fields.
“I’ll admit I started my work day with preconceived notions of migrant labor,” Colbert said. “But after working with these men and women side by side in the unforgiving sun I have to say, and I do mean this sincerely, please don’t make me do this again. It is really, really hard.”
The television personality did crack his fair share of jokes saying “it was the ancient Israelites who built the first food pyramids. But this is America. I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.”
Both Republican and Democratic members of the committee remained skeptical that Colbert’s presence would turn the hearing into a “circus.”
“Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs out there,” Steve King (R-Iowa) said.
Whether Colbert’s presence was merely a comedic cameo or a brilliant attempt at shining light on an ongoing issue facing Congress, one thing can be certain, there is no doubt that the media frenzy that circled him made sure his voice was heard.
Colbert said it best, “I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN 1.”