Emigrant vs Immigrant...

I was reading about the situation in California where the Congressional campaign of Tan Nguyen on their letter written to Hispanic residents stating:

"You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

Which isn't correct since immigrants who have become naturalized U.S. citizens are eligible to vote. Apparently this is being blamed on the media and others who "mistranslated" the spanish word of emigrado into the word immigrant.

The translation of the word emigrado is emigrant, the definition of the word emigrant from dictionary.com:

a person who emigrates, as from his or her native country or region

The definition of the word immigrant from dictionary.com:

a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence

While there is of course no doubt that those who are here illegally if caught voting would be violating the law, whether you believe it was some sort of mistranslation or not, Tan Nguyen doesn't appear to want to take any responsibility for the letter. First he fired the person who he claimed was responsible for it, then supposedly he invited her back. I guess you could quibble over the legal definition of the two but it appears even those who read the letter in Spanish didn't have a very warm reception over the document and some of Nguyen's Republican friends as well as others in the Vietnamese Community don't seem impressed with this either...I'd say if anything this move probably helps his opponent, Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez, especially since she was reportedly well in the lead prior to this. It's another example of how low will a candidate go to try to win but ends up kicking themselves in the butt...