Kentucky Democratic candidate sounds more like a Republican in TV ad

A campaign ad being televised in Kentucky shows grim images of the border and calls undocumented immigrants “illegal aliens,” giving the impression that a Republican candidate released it.

But in reality, the person behind the ad is Democratic Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. In the ad her campaign released last week, Grimes accuses her opponent, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), of voting to give “amnesty and taxpayer-funded benefits to three million illegal aliens.”

That “amnesty” vote she’s criticizing McConnell for took place in 1986, when McConnell voted in support of the immigration reform bill that then-President Ronald Reagan signed into law. Grimes appears at the end of the ad saying, “I approve this message because I’ve never supported amnesty or benefits for illegal immigrants, and I never will.”

SEE ALSO: Republicans and Democrats unhappy with their party on immigration

The TV ad isn’t sitting well with a number of progressive groups and immigration supporters. They are demanding that the Democratic candidate take it down immediately.

Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org, called the ad “offensive” and said his group finds it “deeply troubling that Grimes would stoop this low in order to try to defeat McConnell.”

“MoveOn members in Kentucky and across the country are contacting millions of voters to help prevent a Republican takeover of the Senate, and it makes that important work harder when Democrats embrace inflammatory Republican rhetoric,” Sheyman said in a statement.

Grimes’ ad also drew criticism from the pro-immigration reform group America’s Voice as well as Democracy for America, a progressive group founded in 2004 by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project, also criticized the ad. He said in a statement, “To see a candidate from either party use this kind of language in advertising is unacceptable in 2014, and we condemn this attempt by Alison Lundergan Grimes to play ugly politics with an issue so important to our community and the nation.”

SEE ALSO: Immigration advocates say ICE is ramping up home raids

In a statement to The Hill, Grimes’s campaign manager Jonathan Hurst didn’t directly respond to the criticism. Instead, he said:

“Alison favors comprehensive immigration reform. Neither the recent bill that passed the Senate nor any other serious bill currently supported by most Democrats and Republicans is amnesty. Mitch McConnell’s hypocrisy on this issue is breathtaking.”

Grimes has said in the past that she supports the immigration reform bill that was approved in the Senate in 2013 but stalled in the House. McConnell, on the other hand, voted against the Senate immigration reform bill, which sought to pave a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and ramp up border security.

See Grimes’ ad here: