Today Steve King announced his endorsement of Ted Cruz for president. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who have followed Steve King and Ted Cruz’s extreme rhetoric over the years. They are two of the most xenophobic and anti-immigrant Republicans out there.
From both of their claims that immigrants are murderous and violent to both of their policies to end birthright citizenship and oppose a path to citizenship, Ted Cruz and Steve King are two peas in a pod. In fact, their extreme, out-of-touch and out-of-date comments are nearly indistinguishable from one another.
Although Ted Cruz and Steve King may deserve each other, America does not deserve them.
TED CRUZ AND STEVE KING’S EXTREME IMMIGRATION RHETORIC
Claiming immigrants are violent
STEVE KING
Rep. Steve King said that Latin American immigrants were from “a violent civilization” and were causing “more violence” in American communities. ”During a sparsely attended, Tea Party-sponsored, ‘Stop Amnesty’ rally against immigration reform on Monday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) launched into a vicious tirade against individuals from Latin America, claiming that the population gets more violent as one moves further south in Latin America. […] If you bring people from a violent civilization into a less-violent civilization, you’re going to have more violence right? It’s like pouring hot water into cold water, does it raise the temperature or not?” [ThinkProgress, 8/13/13]
TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz said that American communities were “plagued by the horrible crimes that typically accompany illegal immigration.” “Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, the American people have demanded for years that the Federal Government faithfully enforce our Nation’s immigration laws. Americans are tired of seeing their laws flouted and their communities plagued by the horrible crimes that typically accompany illegal immigration. But for too long, the pleas of the American people on this issue have gone unheeded here in Washington.” [Ted Cruz floor remarks, 10/20/15]
Claiming immigrants are murderers
STEVE KING
Rep. Steve King: Every day, “murderous illegal aliens” kill 12 Americans and another 13 are killed from “drunk driving illegals.” ”In March 2006, King claimed the country would be safer without immigrants, arguing that every day, 12 Americans are killed by ‘murderous illegal aliens’ and another 13 by ‘drunk driving illegals.’ Like with the ‘cantaloupes’ claim, the numbers were fudged. King borrowed them from a government study but ignored the distinction between lawful and undocumented immigrants as well as data showing first-generation immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.” [The New Republic, 11/30/14]
TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz said that sanctuary cities were allowing “illegal aliens” who are “murderers and rapists” to go free. “Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Senate Democrats on Monday, saying they are ‘willing to stand in pure party line vote’ in support of releasing undocumented immigrants who are ‘murderers and rapists’ to protect the president. ‘The Democrats are getting more and more open that they are the party of illegal immigration,’ he said. ‘They support amnesty. They support releasing criminal illegal aliens.’ Cruz made the remarks to Iowa radio host Simon Conway while explaining a law he introduced that Cruz said cuts off federal funding to sanctuary cities that fail to enforce federal immigration law and sets a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison for those who illegally reenter the country with an aggravated felony conviction.” [Buzzfeed,10/13/15]
Supporting the repeal of birthright citizenship
STEVE KING
Rep. Steve King said there was “an anchor baby agenda” in support of birthright citizenship. “Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) re-introduced legislation this week that would end birthright citizenship. King, one of the biggest immigration hardliners in Congress, cited a need to fight an ‘anchor baby agenda’ of illegal immigrants deliberately giving birth in the United States to ensure their children had American citizenship. ‘A century ago it didn’t matter very much that a practice began that has now grown into a birthright citizenship, an anchor baby agenda,’ King said in a statement.” [The Hill, 1/16/15]
TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz said that people who used the term “anchor baby” were “speaking the truth.” “Mickelson, who said this week undocumented immigrants should become property of the state and forced into servitude, asked Cruz whether he believed the term ‘anchor babies’ was offensive. […] ‘You know, there is power, Jan, to simply speaking the truth, to not engaging in this politically correct nonsense and double-speak,’ Cruz said. ‘Speak honestly and candidly about the challenges we face, whether it’s the assault on marriage — and we have the Supreme Court and the radical left trying to forcibly redefine marriage and to tear down what has been a fundamental building block of our society from time immemorial — or when it comes to, on immigration.’” [Raw Story, 8/21/15]
Ted Cruz said the Constitution should “absolutely” be changed to end birthright citizenship. “When the Texas senator was askedWednesday on the Michael Medved show if the 14th Amendment should be changed, Cruz answered ‘absolutely.’ ‘We should end granting automatic birthright citizenship to the children of those who are here illegally,’ he said.” [Bloomberg, 8/19/15]
Claiming immigrants carry diseases
STEVE KING
Rep. Steve King claimed that Ebola was “coming at us from across the border.” “In video captured by the Iowa Republican, King went on a long tirade claiming that America is becoming “a third-world country” because of “the things that are coming at us from across the border,” including illegal drugs, Central American children of “prime gang recruitment age,” ISIS, a childhood respiratory illness that has spread in recent weeks, and the Ebola virus.” [Right Wing Watch, 10/21/14]
TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz said that undocumented workers could come to the U.S. “in a mass migration” carrying the Ebola virus. “CRUZ: The arguments they’re giving don’t make sense. And — and what is unfortunate is watching the Obama administration treat this as — as yet another political issue, rather than as a public health crisis, for the same reason you have seen virtually no attention from the administration on the need to secure the southern border. Now, that is notwithstanding the fact that General John Kelly, the commander of the Southern Command, just a week ago said if Ebola is transmitted to Central or South America, we will see a mass migration, the like of which we have never seen. And the administration, unfortunately, is not acting to protect our southern borders or to restrict commercial airline flights from places with an active outbreak.” [CNN’s State of the Union, 10/19/14]
Praising Donald Trump’s extreme rhetoric
STEVE KING
Rep. Steve King said Donald Trump was “the leader on immigration.” “Rep. Steve King, an influential conservative Republican from Iowa, said Monday he believes Donald Trump is leading the Republican presidential field when it comes to immigration. ‘I think today he is the leader on immigration,’ King told CNN in an interview at the Iowa State Fair. ‘There’s no question about that.’” [CNN, 8/17/15]
TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz said that Donald Trump “speaks the truth” on immigration. “Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday backed his fellow contender for the Republican presidential nomination Donald Trump in the billionaire’s recent feud with NBC — which was ignited over Trump’s controversial comments about Mexican immigrants. ‘I like Donald Trump. I think he’s terrific, I think he’s brash, I think he speaks the truth,’ Cruz said Tuesdaymorning on Fox News. ‘And I think NBC is engaging in political correctness that is silly and that is wrong.’” [CNN, 6/30/15]
Ted Cruz: “I salute Donald Trump” on immigration. “On NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ Sunday, Cruz expressed admiration for the business magnate’s outspokenness on immigration, and criticized media coverage of Trump’s remarks. ‘I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration,’ Cruz said told host Chuck Todd.” [PBS, 7/5/15]
Opposing immigration for political reasons
STEVE KING
Rep. Steve King: “Almost every Democrat I know wants open borders and amnesty and a never-ending supply of illegal aliens in the United States of America.” “I have long known and long been restrained by people in my own party, Mr. Speaker, from laying out the argument as to why almost every Democrat I know wants open borders and amnesty and a never-ending supply of illegal aliens in the United States of America.” [Steve King floor remarks, 5/22/14]
TED CRUZ
Ted Cruz said that a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants should be opposed because it would help Democrats electorally.“He saved most of his venom for undocumented immigrants and those who want to allow them to stay in the U.S., insisting border-crossers may be terrorists or disease-ridden and that ‘amnesty’ would drastically change the safety of the country and the world. Why? Because he said allowing undocumented immigrants to gain citizenship would put more Democrats in power. ‘If you support amnesty, you are supporting our national debt growing and growing and growing and growing and bankrupting our kids and grandkids,’ he said. ‘If you support amnesty, you’re supporting the Democratic party’s assault on religious liberty, assault on our Second Amendment, assault on our privacy. If you’re supporting amnesty, you’re supporting Common Core that the big-government Democrats are trying to force on our schools.’” [Huffington Post, 11/13/15]
More of Rep. King’s greatest hits
CALLING IMMIGRANTS “DRUG MULES”
Rep. Steve King: “We have people that are mules, that are drug mules, that are hauling drugs across the border…going through the desert with 75 pounds of drugs on their back.” ”It’s not something that I’m making up. This is real. We have people that are mules, that are drug mules, that are hauling drugs across the border and you can tell by their physical characteristics what they’ve been doing for months, going through the desert with 75 pounds of drugs on their back and if those who advocate for the DREAM Act, if they choose to characterize this about valedictorians, I gave them a different image that we need to be thinking about because we just simply can’t be passing legislation looking only at one component of what would be millions of people.” [Roll Call, 7/23/13]
Rep. Steve King: “They’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” ”Some of them are valedictorians — and their parents brought them in. It wasn’t their fault. It’s true in some cases, but they aren’t all valedictorians. They weren’t all brought in by their parents. For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” [Huffington Post, 7/25/13]
COMPARING IMMIGRANTS TO ANIMALS
Rep. Steve King compared immigrants to dogs, explaining that people should “pick the one that’s the friskiest … not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner.” ”Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, compared immigrants to dogs at a town hall meeting yesterday, telling constituents that the U.S. should pick only the best immigrants the way one chooses the ‘pick of the litter.’ King told the crowd in Pocahontas, Iowa, that he’s owned lots of bird dogs over the years and advised, ‘You want a good bird dog? You want one that’s going to be aggressive? Pick the one that’s the friskiest … not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner.’” [Salon, 5/22/12]
Rep. Steve King compared immigrants to livestock. ”We could also electrify this wire (on the border) with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would simply be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time.” [IowaWatchdog.org, 7/24/13]
SUPPORT FOR PROFILING OF IMMIGRANTS
Rep. Steve King (R-IA): Law enforcement should identify illegal immigrants based on “shoes,” “grooming,” accents, or “a sixth sense.” ”It’s just a common sense thing. Law enforcement needs to use common sense indicators. Those common sense indicators are all kinds of things, from what kind of clothes people wear — my suit in my case — what kind of shoes people wear, what kind of accident [sic] they have, um, the, the type of grooming they might have, there’re, there’re all kinds of indicators there and sometimes it’s just a sixth sense and they can’t put their finger on it. But these law enforcement officers, if they were going to be discriminating against people on the sole basis of race, singling people out, that’d be going on already.” [Rep. King Floor Speech, 6/15/10]
SUPPORT FOR DEPORTING DREAMERS
Rep. Steve King called Michelle Obama’s guest at the State of the Union “a deportable.” ”Rep. Steve King from Iowa went on a Twitter rant against President Obama and his wife, characterizing their reach-out to ‘a deportable” to attend the State of the Union as a travesty of justice. His tweet, Politico reported: “#Obama perverts ‘prosecutorial discretion’ by inviting a deportable to sit in place of honor at #SOTU w/1st Lady. I should sit with Alito.’ Mr. King’s reference was about Ana Zamora, 20, a Dallas woman who was invited to sit with Mrs. Obama during Mr. Obama’s speech. Ms. Zamora was one of thousands who benefited from Mr. Obama’s ‘dreamers’ order that granted legal status — without congressional approval — to certain illegals and allowed them the ability to obtain work permits and drivers’ license. “ [Washington Times, 1/21/15]
COMPARING IMMIGRANTS TO TERRORISTS
Rep. Steve King called illegal immigration a “slow-motion terrorist attack” on America. “Since King came to Congress, his most over-the-top rhetorical outbursts include comparing immigrants to dogs [and] calling illegal immigration a ‘slow-motion terrorist attack’ on the United States.” [The New Republic, 9/30/14]
CLAIMING TO BE HISPANIC
Rep. Steve King claimed to be “Hispanic and Latino.” Steve King @SteveKingIA: “What does Julian Castro know? Does he know that I’m as Hispanic and Latino as he?” [7/17/15, 11:06 a.m. EDT]