This Iowa state senator thinks some undocumented immigrant felons should be executed

Taking the rhetoric of Donald Trump and other anti-immigration zealots to its most extreme conclusion, an Iowa State Senator suggested this week that some undocumented immigrants should be executed.

Senator Mark Chelgren, a Republican running for Congress, told the Journal-Express of Knoxville that he thinks undocumented immigrants who commit felonies, get deported, and then come back to the U.S. should be put to death.

“There is no reason to have felons here who threaten our way of life,” he told the paper.

A state Republican Party spokesman, Charlie Szold, told the Des Moines Register yesterday that “these remarks do not represent the values and beliefs of Iowa Republicans. Period.”

But it’s hard to imagine a Congressional candidate spouting this kind of hate without the rhetoric that Donald Trump and others have elevated during this presidential election. Chelgren sounds like the fan at a Mississippi Trump rally who told a New York Times reporter that undocumented immigrants should be gunned down for sport.

Chelgren is running for a Congressional district that borders that of Steve King, a congressman who once suggested electrifying the border fence and compared immigrants who cross it to livestock.

An Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson said in a statement that Chelgren’s statements were “vile, hateful, and downright deplorable,” and “a dangerous new low for the Republican Party.”

The Daily Beast, perhaps, had the perfect idea for Chelgren’s future job:

The Trump presidential campaign did not reply when asked if the business mogul would consider Chelgren as his running mate.