A day after abruptly ending Tom Emmer's town hall with a shower of pennies, activist Nick Espinosa now wants the candidate to attend his own forum to talk immigration policy.
Emmer's camp isn't jumping at the prospect.
"We're not interested in meeting with him," said campaign spokester Bill Walsh. "We can't wait to talk about immigration with the eventual DFL nominee after August 10th, but we won't reward this kind of behavior with any kind of public forum."
When Espinosa was escorted away Wednesday, Emmer said, "Tell him to come on back. We can have a discussion."
The 23-year-old Espinosa, who says he used the pseudonym Robert Erickson because he has received death threats, posted an open invitation to Emmer on his website this afternoon.
"This is an invitation that he will come to the heart of the Latino community and actually hear the stories of the immigrant families and people from the Latino community who are affected by his anti-immigrant policies," Espinosa said in an interview.
He says his immigration activism has been fueled by his father's deportation to Equador in 2001. His father had a visa, he said, but was forced out of the country because of a retroactive change in visa law.
Espinosa lives in Minneapolis and graduated from St. Olaf College in 2008.
