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A day after the first debate between the two major party gubernatorial candidates, a controversy over Meg Whitman’s former undocumented maid erupted. At a press conference on Wednesday, a tearful Nicandra Diaz Santillan explained how Whitman had employed her for 9 years, knowing that she was an undocumented immigrant for many of those years. Diaz claims that when she asked her employer for help in legalizing her status last June, she was promptly fired, and, in her own words, was thrown away “like a piece of garbage.” According to Diaz, who is suing Whitman for back-pay, Whitman ended her relationship with Diaz saying “from now on you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. You have never seen me, and I have never seen you.” The revelations come at a tricky time for the GOP candidate for Governor, who veered further toward the right on immigration issues during her primary election battle against Steve Poizner, and in the process may have alienated many Latinos. Diaz’ well-known lawyer, Gloria Allred claims that the Whitmans received a letter in 2003 from the Social Security Administration stating that their housekeeper’s Social Security number did not match her name. Whitman says she did not receive the letter. When asked if she would take a polygraph test to determine if she is telling the truth, Whitman said “absolutely.” She has accused her rival Jerry Brown of being behind the “October surprise.” Using her vast reserves of personal wealth Whitman has broken all campaign spending records, and even opened an office in the heavily Latino East Los Angeles which was early on stormed by people angry about her stance on immigration.

GUEST: Liz Goodwin, National Affairs Reporter for Yahoo News

Read Liz Goodwin’s article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100929/us_yblog_upshot/
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