By JIM BARON

PAWTUCKET – While protesters outside chanted “Tom Tancredo, out of our state, we don’t want your racist hate,” Tancredo was inside pointing toward the muffled voices and telling an appreciative audience, “they hate the idea of America.”

The battle lines were drawn on a tidy Fairlawn side street Wednesday as the former Colorado congressman and 2008 GOP presidential candidate, who made his name battling illegal immigration, addressed the group Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement (RIILE), bemoaning what he called the “frenzy of political correctness and the cult of multiculturalism.”

Speaking to RIILE was not the reason Tancredo came to Rhode Island. He had been invited to address a group of Providence College students called Youth for Western Civilization (YWC), but the college administration nixed that event, noting that YWC is not recognized as an organization by the college’s Student Congress.

RIILE President Terry Gorman said that once Tancredo was not allowed to speak at PC, the students asked if he could come to the monthly RIILE meeting and Gorman was happy to comply.

Two weeks ago, when Tancredo tried to address students at the University of North Carolina, the speech was shut down by angry protesters.

Once again referring to the protesters, who were also chanting, “racist, sexist, anti-gay, Tom Tancredo go away,” the Colorado Republican insisted his stand on immigration “has nothing to do with race. It is always perceived as some sort of racial thing.”

Racism, Tancredo said, “is not in my heart; it never has been.” He said when he talks about protecting America, “I mean protecting America, every American citizen – white American citizens, brown American citizens, black American citizens. They are the people I care about.

Martha Yager of Seekonk, one of those protesting Tancredo’s appearance Wednesday, wasn’t buying that.  “Tom Tancredo has been involved in fomenting anti-immigrant, racist activities around the country for a number of years,” Yager said, “and the folks here felt it important not to ignore his presence here. The racism and anti-immigrant sentiment is not welcome.”

Characteristically, Tancredo was not afraid to wade into controversial issues. He told the approximately 75 people who turned out for the talk that the current swine flu infecting many parts of the country is “misnamed. It is the Mexican flu. Nobody will say that, nobody will talk about it that way. And why won’t we actually do something about our borders, for God’s sake? At this point in time, why would you not secure your borders against people who are coming here with a disease that could be catastrophic to us?” He said sealing the border with Mexico “today, is only a rational approach to the problem.”

He called bilingual education “a terrible thing. Language does bring people together. That’s why one of the worse things we do is bilingual education where we teach kids in a language other than English. It’s a terrible thing to do to them and it is a bad thing for our society.

“I hate bilingual ballots,” the longtime politician declared, “how can you vote in any election if you do not understand the debate that led up to that particular election?

“We are dividing our country, linguistically, ethnically,” he said. Pointing once again to the people shouting on the sidewalk, he said, “They are doing it, because they believe so much in diversity, diversity, diversity. It’s everything. They have a different view of America, different than you and I do.

“They think of America as different,” he said, “and I fear that the president thinks of America as different.” That line drew enthusiastic applause. “He goes around the world apologizing for what we’ve done. What? Set the world free how many times and spend hundreds of thousands of lives in the process?”

He said the woman who was carjacked and raped by Marco Riz, an illegal Guatemalan immigrant who was previously arrested twice by Providence Police, who did not check his immigration status either time, should sue the city.

“I’m telling you right now, if you know the family, and they are willing to talk about this, they should bring a lawsuit because it is against the law to operate a sanctuary city. It is against federal law. If you are operating it, you lose all your protections. You can’t be sued if you are a government entity, but not if you are operating illegally.”

Providence Mayor David Cicilline has repeatedly said Providence is not a sanctuary city, a city that protects illegal aliens from deportation.  

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden said, “immigration reform is on the agenda” of the Obama administration.

“People say ‘you are not going to get immigration reform done in this economic environment this year,’” he said, “and my response is the president’s: You can’t finish if you don’t start.

“We’ve got to start serious discussions, serious negotiations on immigration now. I hope we’d be able to complete it this year, but whether we can or not, we have to start. The sooner we start, the higher the prospect is we will have a comprehensive immigration reform.”