Steve Lonegan, the embattled anti-immigrant New Jersey mayor accused of hiring two undocumented Guatemalan workers to do some gardening work, seems to be running out of excuses and explanations. In his latest statements to the New York Times, Mr. Lonegan (in photo) came up with the following:

“The real hypocrites are the liberals who are saying that I should have assumed that because they’re Spanish that they’re illegal. That we’re now going to socially stereotype people and assume they’re illegal.”

Wait a second: “I should have assumed that because they’re Spanish they’re illegal.”??? I am not sure of what Mr. Lonegan is talking about; and while I strongly support his point of not stereotyping people… Did he really think these guys were actually from the Iberian Peninsula?

You never know. This is the same guy who last summer asked McDonald’s to bring down a Spanish-language billboard promoting a café helado. (Does he know where the real Bogota is?… Just curious.)