"...When Colbert was asked by Rep. Judy Chu why he was focusing on this particular issue...[he said]:
'I like talking about people who don’t have any power. And this seems one of the least powerful people in the United States…are migrant workers who come and do our work, but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet, we still invite them to come here, and then at the same time, ask them to leave.
That’s an interesting contradiction to me. And, you know, ‘whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers,’ and these seem to be the least of our brothers. Right now, a lot of people are least brothers right now because the economy’s so hard. And I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or do anything like that.
To me it sounded like the room microphones were turned off during most of his speech, and were only turned back on for that. So people were probably laughing the whole way through, but we just couldn't hear it until then.