Here are two actual proposals to control the illegal immigrant population in America. One is to implant into each immigrant a computer chip. The other is to stretch an electrified fence along the Mexican border, set at a below – fatal level of power. Both proposers were apparently sober at the time.
According to one account, “Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has alarmed civil libertarians by promoting the company’s subcutaneous human tracking device as a way to identify immigrants and guest workers. He appeared on the Fox News Channel [on May 18, 2006], the morning after President Bush called for high-tech measures to clamp down on Mexican immigrants.
The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated Radio Frequency Identification tag that is injected into the flesh to uniquely number and identify people. The tag can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves from up to a foot or more away, right through clothing. The highly controversial device is also being marketed as a way to access secure areas, link to medical records, and serve as a payment device when associated with a credit card.
VeriChip’s Silverman bandied about the idea of chipping foreigners on national television Tuesday, emboldened by the Bush Administration call to know “who is in our country and why they are here.” He told Fox & Friends that the VeriChip could be used to register guest workers, verify their identities as they cross the border, and “be used for enforcement purposes at the employer level.” He added, “We have talked to many people in Washington about using it….”
Thanks to Stephanie King, a staffer on the Hill, for sending this excerpt from the publication, The Hill (no direct link available)
Steve King (R-IA) equates immigrants to livestock
It was prop time on the House floor Tuesday night when Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), making the case for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, showed a miniature version of a border wall that he “designed.”
He had mock sand representing the desert as well as fake construction panels as C-SPAN focused in on the unusual display. But it got really interesting when King broke out the mock electrical wiring: “I also say we need to do a few other things on top of that wall, and one of them being to put a little bit of wire on top here to provide a disincentive for people to climb over the top.”
He added, “We could also electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time.”
King spokeswoman Summer Johnson disputed the notion that it was an immigrant-livestock comparison, saying, “He was comparing a fence to a fence – a border fence to an Iowa farm fence.” The outspoken proponent of border security, however, did not mention an Iowa farm fence during his show-and-tell performance.