U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, who's made a political living off a hard-line approach to immigration, is trading pops with the mayors of Eagle Pass and Brownsville.

Let's start with the Texans, who wrote this letter after Tancredo's visit to South Texas:

Dear Representative Tancredo:

We have received your most recent tirade masquerading as a press release. While we understand that half-truths and deception are the minimum low standard of the Washington drive-by attack, we prefer straight talk.

We oppose the one-size-fits-all, wasteful, ineffective border solution demanded by Washington showboat politicians. We are working hard to put in place effective alternatives that will achieve real border security.

We have never said, “there is no border.” The Rio Grande River has been our border since the agreement to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. To ascribe that quote to us, even by inference, in your tirade is ridiculously juvenile. We suggest you adopt U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s advice: “Grow up.”

Best wishes in your post-congressional career.

Sincerely,

Chad Foster
Mayor
Eagle Pass, Texas

Pat Ahumada
Mayor
Brownsville, Texas

And here's the Tancredo screed to which they were responding:

Tancredo Reiterates Suggestion That Border Fence Be Constructed North of Brownsville/Sends letter to Mayors restating his position and commitment to border security

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) today sent a letter to Mayors Pat Ahumada and Chad Foster, of Brownsville and Eagle Pass, Texas, clarifying his comments at a House Natural Resources Committee Field Hearing held in Brownsville on April 28th.

During the course of the hearing, Tancredo suggested that the congressionally authorized border fence be built north of cities like Brownsville if their local governments continue to obstruct the completion of the barrier.

“Securing the border is not a local issue. After all, what we are talking about here is not the Brownsville-Mexico border, or the El Paso-Mexico border, or the Yuma-Mexico border – it is the U.S.-Mexico border,” Tancredo said. “And the federal government’s failure to secure that has had disastrous consequences.”

Local communities have expressed multiculturalist sentiment by suggesting that “there is no border” between the U.S. and Mexico, and refusing to cooperate with federal authorities over the congressionally approved border fence.

Tancredo concluded, “This is a matter of national importance, and the American public should not be asked to sit back and allow a handful of local governments and their friends in the “open borders” lobby to exercise veto power over something that impacts not only our national security, but our national sovereignty.”