Iowa GOP candidate: Install microchips in illegal immigrants
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 1:46 pm
- 10 Comments
Instead of building a border fence to help stem illegal immigration, the U.S. government should implant microchips into immigrants before deportation, much like what is done with pets, Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale, Iowa–based physician and one of seven Republicans running in Iowa’s 3rd District Congressional primary, said Monday.
While speaking at a Tama County Republican forum, Bertroche made it clear that he wasn’t joking when he suggested treating undocumented immigrants like pets.
From the Cedar Rapids Gazette:
“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support microchipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I microchip an illegal?
“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said.
Five of the six other candidates vying for the chance to take on Democratic U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell also spoke at the event, and each came out strongly against amnesty and in favor of tougher border security. State Sen. Brad Zaun of Urbandale said “illegal people who are here, put them on a bus and send them wherever they came from.” He also contended that immigrants in the country illegally receive government services, like education and health care, and typically aren’t helping pay to support those services.
But that isn’t true. A 2007 study by the non-partisan Iowa Policy Project found that the average undocumented family in Iowa pays about $1,254 in sales and excise taxes, $110 in property taxes and $307 in income taxes, for a total tax contribution of $1,671 each year. This represents approximately 80 percent of the total amount of taxes paid by a documented family in Iowa earning the same income.
Undocumented immigrant workers who work “on the books” also contribute additional state and federal taxes that go to pay for benefits that, because of their illegal status, these workers will never be able to access. Every year, employers pay the State of Iowa an estimated $1.85 million to $2.86 million in state unemployment insurance premiums on behalf of their unauthorized employees, and undocumented workers and their employers together pay an estimated $50.3 million to $77.8 million in Social Security and Medicare taxes to the federal government.
10 Comments
Comment posted April 27, 2010 @ 3:31 pm
Aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddddd……………. say good bye to any chance of being elected.
Sadly, I’m well aware that people are stupid (look at those who voted for Michelle Bachmann) and are likely to still vote for this Looney Toon.
Candidates who dehumanize illegal immigrants have no right being in public office.
Comment posted April 27, 2010 @ 4:21 pm
There’s an error in the link to the study. Right now it’s http://iowaindependent.com/32926/www.iowapolicyproject.org/2007docs/071025-undoc.pdf
but it should be http://www.iowapolicyproject.org/2007docs/071025-undoc.pdf
Comment posted April 27, 2010 @ 10:42 pm
It’s ironic that conservatives tend to favor eliminating the sub-minimum wage labor pool, and liberals tend to have sympathy for illegals undercutting low wage and union workers.
It goes to show that people on both sides of the issue haven’t thought it through, just emitting knee jerk reactions they were taught by their ideological heroes.
I say tattoo them on the way in for which they pay no tax but are entitled to no form of assistance and their offspring are explicitly illegal. Everyone’s a winner.
Comment posted April 28, 2010 @ 2:16 am
Jeez-us, Pat. Why not just brand ‘em. Run out of Scarlet Letters? How about showing a shred of humanity, “Doctor”?
Isn’t Iowa a little far from the Mexican border to be showing such contempt for Latinos?
Maybe right-wing xenophobia knows no borders.
Comment posted April 28, 2010 @ 9:19 am
Jimmy,
Conservatives love illegal immigration. Illegal immigration could be ended tomorrow if they wanted to. throw a couple CEO’s and employers in jail and illegal immigration stops. Of course, it’s easier to go after the poor and different in order to make it look like you really care about stopping the problem. You can swat 1000 mosquitoes, but until you dry up the pond they will keep coming. Until you start going after the employers with the same fervor, we will know you don’t care about this problem and are just another racist. Thanks Jimmy. It’s guys like you that distract from the real cause of the problem, distract from real solutions, and perpetuate hate. Good work pal.
Comment posted April 28, 2010 @ 11:21 am
I see some benefit to having illegal aliens participating in our economy. They are an imperfect solution to the perfectly moronic minimum wage. Most or all of that benefit is probably negated by government/medical assistance and crime etc.
Of course the chip idea is ludicrous. It would be expensive and would provide no obvious benefit.
Comment posted April 28, 2010 @ 9:32 pm
there’s something really ugly going on when someone can stand up during a public event and seriously suggest something so inhumane, unconstitutional, and un-American without being immediately repudiated by the other participants.
also, how shameful for a physician to equate another human being with a dog.
Comment posted April 28, 2010 @ 9:35 pm
Jimmy, you don’t mind shredding the constitution when it’s for a conservative cause, do you?
You want to tattoo people? Like they did in Nazi Germany, right? May be we should let them work, but they should be ‘concentrated’ in ‘camps’ at night, so they won’t try to get to the white women.
Pingback posted April 29, 2010 @ 7:45 am
[...] I suppose they want us to look to Iowa and follow Pat Betroche’s lead in calling for microchips to be installed in illegal immigrants. [...]
Comment posted May 3, 2010 @ 7:24 am
The microchip…the yellow star?
Is it not the same acrid smell that permeates still…as in the times of Dr. Goebbels?
However, such a mind-set has revealed its own poetic justice as this Iowa candidate or anyone who endorses such branding of individuals have essentially ‘branded’ themselves as perveyors of injustice by so self-labeling themselves as unacceptable,archaic bigots.
Sad to see any group still representing the same, sick profiling; branding of another human being.
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