It Guess That It Must Be Election Season — Georgia Legislator: Time to Allow Border Officers to “Shoot to Kill”

 
It is the fall.  Election season is going hot and heavy.  The debate over immigration has been so heated that it was only a matter of time until an elected state official proposed a truly extraordinary border “enforcement” proposal akin to border enforcement in the old East Germany.  The Raw Story reports that

 “Georgia’s Republican State Rep. John Yates . . . wants US border agents empowered to `shoot to kill.’  Asked to justify his position, Yates recently told a reporter in Atlanta that illegal immigrants are enemies of America who must be dealt with severely. `Stopping Hitler was worth the price,’ the 89-year-old lawmaker said.” (emphasis added).  Just how are undocumented immigrants somehow comparable to Hitler?

Refusing to back down, Representative Yates later defended his remarks.

Unfortunately, more generally, as Matea Gold reports in the Los Angeles Times, “Democrats and Republicans pounding each other on the airwaves in the run-up to the Nov. 2 midterm elections have found one common enemy: foreigners.”

KJ