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According to Salon,

King told the crowd in Pocahontas, Iowa, that he’s owned lots of bird dogs over the years and advised, “You want a good bird dog? You want one that’s going to be aggressive? Pick the one that’s the friskiest … not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner.” King suggested lazy immigrants should be avoided as well. “You get the pick of the litter and you got yourself a pretty good bird dog. Well, we’ve got the pick of every donor civilization on the planet,” King said. “We’ve got the vigor from the planet to come to America.”

Here’s the video:

What King is saying is that we should be picking the best immigrants to live here and throw the rest back to where they came from, which is a significant shift in the values engraved on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
~Emma Lazarus, 1883

Instead of that beautiful example of American immigration values, King would change the lines to say:

“Give me your most energetic, your wealthy,
Your most successful few yearning to keep freedom from others,
The most noble of assets of your teeming shore.
Send these, those with multiple mansions, untroubled to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That’s exactly what Steve King is proposing. He wants Americans to turn their backs on those seeking a better life and specifically select immigrants who are already successful to come to America. What King fails to understand is that even poor immigrants have lived the American Dream and have made successes of themselves. Immigrants come here because they want an opportunity to succeed and to be free. What immigrants do not want is to be compared to dogs and selectively chosen based on their current economic status. Immigrants are human beings and should be treated as such. America is a land of immigrants. Every non-Native American in this country can trace their lineage back to the first members of their family who came to these shores looking for a better life. Today’s immigrants deserve the same chance that our own ancestors were blessed to receive.

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