Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) wants to start deporting American citizens.
Not all American citizens, mind you. Just the natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal immigrants.
At a tea party rally in Ramona in San Diego County over the weekend, Hunter fielded a question about the issue.
“Would you support deportation of natural born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?” a man in the audience asked.
“I would have to, yes,” Hunter said.
He continued:
You can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy. That’s a mean thing to do. That’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now.
“We just can’t afford it anymore,” Hunter said. “That’s it. And we’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.”
Hunter’s office did not immediately return TPM’s phone call seeking comment.
Hunter also said he thinks Arizona’s controversial new immigration law “is a fantastic starting point.”
Watch (the relevant question comes just after the 2-minute mark):
Late Update: I just got off the phone with Joe Kasper, Hunter’s spokesperson. He didn’t really back down from the basics of Hunter’s statement, but did offer some more context.
“By no means was that the message, that yeah, let’s start rounding people up,” Kasper said. Hunter does not want to start “tracking kids down and deporting them,” Kasper said.
What he does want, Kasper said, is to do away with the citizenship rights for children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States. In fact, Hunter is one of more than 90 House Republicans who are cosponsoring a bill that would do just that.
