Miami loves its illegal aliens, whether they are in costumes or boat drifts.
So while the nation has a hissy fit over a Halloween costume that isn’t quite up to PC snuff, many Miamians have laughed it off.
Don King (not that Don King), whose mother immigrated from Cuba, bought pirate and Homer Simpson costumes Tuesday at Halloween USA in Midtown Miami, where the “Illegal Alien” costume is on sale but has attracted few customers.
"It's a joke," King said. "I really don't think much of it."
A few miles away in Little Havana, workers at a popular costume store said it was not something they would carry because it was discriminatory. As if the human taco costume, complete with a Mariachi hat on aisle 10 of the store doesn’t have “ethnic joke” written all over it.
Cashier Carmen Torres, who recalled facing discrimination after arriving from Cuba as a young girl in the 1960s, said the costume was tasteless.
"They haven't done anything bad. You can punish those who are criminals, but not people who are trying to work," Torres said.
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But the PC police seem to be winning this fight over an alien costume.
Since Friday, when the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles first raised the issue, companies including Target, Walgreens and eBay have removed the costume from their inventory. Still, many local retailers continue to stock the costume that also comes with a "green" card -- which technically makes the alien legal.
Target has said it sold the costume online only and was posted by accident because it did not meet the company's standards. eBay said it asked sellers to remove the costume because it "does not allow items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views."
Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the immigrant coalition, said the costume "perpetuates this idea we have about undocumented immigrants as alien foreigners, strangers, scary."
Personally, we think going to a party as an unemployment check or a pink slip would be far scarier.
