Immigrant Activist Gaby Pacheco Speaks Out On Ann Coulter Comments

NBC News

By Griselda Nevarez

May 29, 2015

Immigrant Activist Gaby Pacheco Speaks Out On Ann Coulter Comments

An immigration activist said Friday she is more worried about disparaging comments made by Ann Coulter about Mexicans and immigrants than the controversial conservative columnist's criticizing her weight or refusing to hug her.

Gaby Pacheco, an immigrant activist with deferred deportation status, discussed her encounter with Coulter in an interview with radio host Rick Sanchez on Friday.

Pacheco told Sanchez she is worried about the "inappropriate" and "hateful" comments Coulter often makes about Mexicans and immigrants and how she portrays white people as being superior to others.

Pacheco also said it "saddens" her to see how Coulter is "making money out of putting fear and hateful things out in this world."

"She wants to sell books, and she's is going to be as outrageous as possible," Pacheco said.

Coulter has written several books that have been bestsellers. Her latest is Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole."

"You can be conservative. You can be Republican. You can even be against immigration. But you don't have to say the things that she is saying," Pacheco said.

Sanchez, who described Coulter as a friend and a "brilliant woman," criticized Coulter's comments about Pacheco's weight, saying "You don't need to do that," but said, "that's my Ann," in reference to Coulter's history of controversial comments.

Pacheco had participated in a question and answer session during an interview of Coulter by television news anchor Jorge Ramos on Tuesday.

Pacheco had offered to hug Coulter, "as a sign of my humanity and to recognize you." But Coulter refused the hug, saying she was recovering from a bad flu.

During the interview, Coulter told Ramos that Americans should "fear immigrants" from Mexico more than ISIS, an Islamic extremist terrorist group.

"If you don't want to be killed by ISIS, don't go to Syria," Coulter said Tuesday. "If you don't want to be killed by a Mexican, there's nothing I can tell you."

Later, Coulter was quoted in Brietbart News, saying in an e-mail, "When I'm in charge of immigration (after our 10-year moratorium), I will not admit overweight girls."

Pacheco told Sanchez she knows she's overweight "but at the same time, that does not define who I am as a human being. And the fact that she's trying to shame me and she's trying to make a joke of this just labels her as a bully."

Pacheco came to the U.S. from Ecuador with her parents at the age of 8. She lived in the country illegally for years until 2012 when she and other young immigrants were granted deportation deferrals through an executive action by President Barack Obama, known as DACA.

Pacheco is currently the program director for TheDream.US, a national scholarship fund for immigrant youth without legal status in the U.S.

When Sanchez asked Pacheco if she would answer a phone call from Coulter, Pacheco said she would, to help Coulter learn about immigrants.

"I think she needs to hear from people like myself," Pacheco said. "She talks about immigrants not wanting to get status and wanting to be on welfare. That's not the immigrants that I know, that my community represents."

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