GOP funding vigilantes?
by digby
That’s what the Heritage Foundation is calling for:
The organization is still recovering from a fiasco last year in which one of its senior policy analysts was found to have previously written a paper claiming Latinos in the US are and will likely remain less intelligent than “native whites.”
Now, they’re releasing what they call “practical, effective, fair and compassionate” solutions to the current immigration crisis—a plan that includes stepped up border enforcement by vigilante organizations and an explicit threat to deport anyone covered by a future executive order.
So what are some of the steps on their self-described “positive path”?
Give “accreditation” and state government funding to private citizens to “police border communities”
These private citizen groups, many of which have been designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, have stepped up their activity in recent weeks.
Armed with semi-automatic weapons and wearing camouflage—according to their recruitment photos—they have vowed to “fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution.”
In response to this escalation, the US Border Patrol said in a statement that it “does not endorse or support any private group or organization taking matters into their own hands, as it could have potentially disastrous personal public safety consequences.”
The problem isn’t new. The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that “vigilante militias have been capturing, pistol-whipping and very possibly shooting Latin American immigrants” along the border since the 1990s.
In 2012, the leader of the “US Border Guard” militia in Arizona killed five people including a toddler.
Terrific idea. because if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past couple of weeks it’s that we just don’t have enough para-military agencies in this country. We’re going to have to get the open-carry yahoos and the Oath-keepers and militiamen deputized to form posses at the border. What could go wrong?
The upside? Well, they hate the idea of any kind of government spending — except on cops and soldiers. So we can think of this as a jobs program.
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