Steve King Toasts Border Patrol For Deporting Protected DREAMer

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, arrives for a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. Senate leaders announced a last-minute agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default an... Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, arrives for a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. Senate leaders announced a last-minute agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown. Congress raced to pass the measure by day's end. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) MORE LESS
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Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Tuesday poured a cold one to celebrate U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s deportation of an undocumented immigrant who was legally protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

USA Today reported on Wednesday that in February, federal agents deported Juan Manuel Montes despite his active DACA status.

Montes, who is 23 years old, was brought to the United States at age 9. He has lived in the country since and received deportation protections twice under the program, per USA Today. According to the report, federal agents refused to let him retrieve his ID or prove his status and deported Montes within hours of approaching him.

President Donald Trump in January told ABC News that DACA recipients “shouldn’t be very worried.”

“I do have a big heart,” he said. “We’re going to take care of everybody.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer also signaled in January that Trump was not prioritizing the revocation of deportation relief for DACA enrollees, also known as DREAMers (after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act).

“He’s going to work through it with his team in a very humane way to make sure that he respects the situation that many of these children are in,” Spicer said.

King, less than pleased with the White House’s inaction, said in February that Trump should have repealed the DACA program “on the first day” of his presidency.

“All he had to do was sign an executive order on the first day. That should’ve been done,” he said. “I want to see it done, and done soon, because the problem is getting bigger every day.”

King referred to Montes as a “non-valedictorian” in his tweet posted Tuesday, likely a reference to an infamous 2013 interview in which King claimed that for every DREAMer who becomes a valedictorian “there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

John Boehner, then House Speaker, gave a succinct response to that comment: “What an asshole.”

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Notable Replies

  1. How unfortunate that we can’t find an excuse for deporting the likes of Steve King.

  2. Now did Boehner mean Goggles or Whiny?

    Plus, that’s really a Coca-Cola. Goggles is too much of a pussy to drink actual BEER.

  3. Avatar for cuwrs cuwrs says:

    Steve King may not be particularly bright, but he’s at the top of the class in bigotry. So at least he’s got that going for him.

  4. Avatar for paulw paulw says:

    If you read up on some of the immigration raiders, they don’t need an excuse. Ship whoever they want to whatever country they decide, and let the lawyers sort it out later.

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