State Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, took to the Senate floor today to clarify his statements made during a Tuesday meeting on an illegal immigration bill.

Ford said he was trying to make the point that immigrants have done much of the hard labor that built the United States.

Opposing the illegal immigration legislation, Ford said Tuesday that “brothers,” who he both referred to as black men, and “blue-eyed, pale-skinned” men, did not work as hard as “Mexicans” do now.

Ford’s comments upset some Republicans and Democrats who thought they were insensitive to the work ethic of the state’s African-American and white workers.

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