Republican lawmaker suggests immigrants should be thrown out of helicopters

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) appeared to suggest migrants should be extrajudicially murdered in a social media post on Thursday.

Collins made the post on X in response to another post by Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY), who was reacting to a Fox News clip of an arrested immigrant in a Lakers jersey, giving a double middle-finger salute to the cameras as he was being led away.

"We feel the same way about you," wrote D'Esposito. "Holla at the cartels and have them escort you back."

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"Or we could buy him a ticket on Pinochet Air for a free helicopter ride back," replied Collins.

Collins is referring to right-wing Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, who seized the country in a 1973 coup and became infamous for his government's so-called "death flights," where civilians kidnapped by the armed forces were thrown out of helicopters into the Pacific Ocean.

President Joe Biden and a bipartisan Senate coalition have been working on a compromise to reform asylum and border security policies in response to a surge of migrants for which the current legal system is not equipped. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), at the urging of former President Donald Trump, has already declared the bill dead without even having seen the text.