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The Comedian Gets Serious

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Click here to read this article in Spanish.

During the only moment at which he “broke character” from his ultraconservative-commentator persona during a Congressional hearing on undocumented farm workers, comedian Stephen Colbert couldn’t have been more serious:

I like talking about people who don’t have any power.

When a member of Congress asked Colbert why he had gotten involved with this issue, Colbert replied:

it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. But yet we still invite them to come here and at the same time ask them to leave. Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.

Some members of Congress, supposedly sent to Washington to be the voice of their constituents and of the weakest in society had complained that Colbert’s presence testifying at the hearing of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House of Representatives showed a “lack of respect” for the institution and made a “joke” of the process. Then again, these people manage to turn their jobs into a joke on a daily basis.