KNUS' Sharf on immigrants: "Who better to do landscaping?"

On the March 11 broadcast of John Andrews' KNUS 710 AM Backbone Radio, Joshua Sharf promoted a common stereotype about immigrants, eliciting laughter from fellow guest hosts Matt Dunn and Krista Kafer. The trio were discussing The Denver Post's recent four-part series "Fortress America," which examined federal efforts to curtail illegal immigration. Kafer asserted that illegal immigrants were "destroying ... fragile desert environments," to which Sharf replied, "On the other hand, who better to do the landscaping?"

From the March 11 broadcast of KNUS 710 AM's Backbone Radio:

SHARF: I don't feel like I'm living in a fortress. I don't know if I'm the only one here, but --

DUNN: The gated communities in Orange County that you referred to probably have better security than that wall.

SHARF: Absolutely.

DUNN: And a fair number of the illegals doing their lawns, too. [Laughs]

SHARF: The Post goes on about this "Fortress America" that we're living in: "If all goes according to plan, the strategy will cost billions of dollars, lead to the biggest border prison boom in decades, create the federal government's largest enforcement arm, and literally remake the landscape of the country's 2,000-mile southern border."

KAFER: Can I just dive in there for a second?

DUNN: Yes you may, Krista.

KAFER: They talk about remaking the landscape. I, I believe it was in National Geographic, or it may have been The Economist -- one of the periodicals that I, I subscribe to. But, because of the illegal immigrants, they're actually destroying environments down in the -- the Southwest. I mean, fragile desert environments that --

DUNN: Does Al Gore know about this?

KAFER: We need to tell him. We could maybe phone him at his mansion.

SHARF: On the other hand, who better to do landscaping?

[Laughter]

—E.B.