Andrew Friedman

Immigrants and Animals

Last Tuesday night, the debate in Washington about immigrants and immigration policy hit a new low. Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, was waxing poetic about how to build a wall along the border with Mexico, when he pulled out some mock electrical wiring to show how a border wall could be electrified.

He said,

We could also electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time.

So, now I think I get it. The right is against comprehensive immigration reform and for militarization of our Southern border because they think that immigrants and their families are just job-stealing animals.

Once immigrants are seen as sub-human, it is easy to ignore their aspirations, their value, and their economic and cultural contributions to the United States.

Representative King has torn the mask off of the sanctimonious law and order rhetoric of the right and exposed the ugly racism that undergirds it. Let's see if anyone changes positions.

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Posted at 10:38 AM, Jul 17, 2006 in Immigration
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