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GOP freshman denies comparing immigrants to animals
House Republican freshman Jeff Duncan (S.C.) this week defended a comment he made on illegal immigration that appeared to compare immigrants to “any kind of vagrant or animal.”
Duncan on Monday described the southern U.S. border as “kind of like having a house.”
Leaving the southern border open was like “taking the door off the hinges and allowing any kind of vagrant or animal or just somebody that’s hungry, or somebody that wants to do your dishes for you, to come in,” he said, according to South Carolina’s Greenville News.
“The problem with the tea party folks like Jeff Duncan is that they’re obviously smoking it rather than drinking it,” Chairman Dick Harpootlian told The Greenville News. “I don’t know why there’s this common thread among Republicans to refer to poor people or to immigrants or anyone that they would denigrate as animals.”
Duncan spokesman Allen Klump said that the congressman was not making a comparison between immigrants and animals but between the southern border and a home.
“Congressman Duncan was simply saying what South Carolinians already know, that securing our borders is just like securing our homes. A border with no fence is like a house with no doors, where anyone or anything can come and go as they please," Klump said in a statement.
“It would be both incorrect and extremely unfortunate to assign any other meaning to the Congressman’s remarks,” he said.
Duncan made the comment Monday night at a small roundtable event hosted for students of Furman University with other freshmen House Republicans from South Carolina.
The full context of Duncan’s quote was not recorded, but he was responding to a student’s question on the subject of “tough issues" confronted by Congress.
“Congressman Duncan believes we have to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws,” Klump said.
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