Rep. Steve King defends immigrant drug mule comments on the House floor

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), under fire for his comments that
many immigrant children are criminal drug runners, quietly defended those
remarks on the House floor late Wednesday night.

King took to the floor at the invitation of Rep. Michele
Bachmann (R-Minn.), as part of a general discussion about immigration. King
argued broadly that the Senate immigration bill would mean amnesty for millions
of illegal immigrants.

The Iowa lawmaker did not directly address his controversial
comments from the weekend, but near the end of his remarks, King asked to
insert a statement into the Congressional Record, “just for clarity
purposes.” He did not explain what that statement was on Wednesday night.

{mosads}According to the Record, King’s statement is a copy
of a 2012 Associated Press article titled, “Mexico Children Used as
‘Mules’ by Drug Gangs.”

The report explained that more children are being arrested
for moving drugs between the U.S. and Mexico, and quoted a drug trafficking
expert as saying the trend is “growing at a worrying pace.”

King also inserted a portion of his weekend radio interview,
in which he said supporters of immigration reform are depicting illegal minors
as valedictorians and argued that many criminals would also benefit from a
pathway to citizenship.

“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another
100 out there that they weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of
cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the
desert,” he said. “Those people would be legalized with the same
act.”

King’s comments on illegal immigrant children being drug
mules were quickly condemned by House GOP leaders, with Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) on Tuesday calling them “wrong” and Majority Leader Eric Cantor saying
the remarks were “inexcusable.”

In that same interview, King said he has sympathy for many
people, and he included those remarks as well in his submitted statement.

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t groups of people in
this country that I have sympathy for, I do,” he said. “And there are
kids that were brought into this country by their parents unknowing that they
were breaking the law.”

But in his discussion with Bachmann, King also indicated
support for current law that requires children brought into the United States
to leave once they become old enough to realize they are illegal immigrants.

“[W]hen they become of age, and they realize that
they’re unlawfully present in the United States, the law requires that they
remove themselves. It’s just the law,” he said.

“So we expect them to accept this responsibility,
whether it was the intent that they had when they came in or the intent that
they have to stay tomorrow. If we don’t do that, then we’ve absolved a whole
class of people from a responsibility and rewarded them with the objective of
their crime.”