VivirLatino

Cell phone operator Cingular Wireless has pulled a controversial ringtone which

…”portrayed a Border Patrol agent with sirens blaring and threatening to deport a Hispanic immigrant “back home-o” and instructing him to “put down the oranges.”

The story about Cingular’s decision first surfaced in the Brownsville Herald, which subsequently received so much traffic to their web site when other media got wind of the news that it was shut down. It seems that many a reader was upset with Cingular for having “given in” to Latino pressure:

In its Wednesday editions, The Herald asked readers to submit their thoughts on the story and asked: “La Migra ringtone: Offensive of just off-color?”

E-mails from around the country poured in to the paper, railing against Cingular for bowing to pressure from “illegal aliens” and for being “politically correct.”

Most respondents used the ringtone as a springboard to write about illegal immigration, a subject that has been center stage in American political discourse in recent months.

“I find it far more offensive to call Cingular and get a machine answering the phone in English, followed by Mexican,” one reader wrote.

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