A Republican lawmaker from Kansas apologized Tuesday for saying that undocumented immigrants should be shot like feral hogs during a committee meeting on Monday.
“My statements yesterday were regrettable,” Rep. Virgil Peck wrote in a statement. “Please accept my apology.”
Peck came under fire for his comments from numerous Hispanic civil rights groups from all over the country yesterday after making the remarks at a meeting dealing with how to control the state’s wild pig population. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback also asked Peck to apologize.
“It looks like to me if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works maybe we have found (a solution) to our illegal immigration problem,” Peck said. Afterwards, the lawmaker said he was “just joking” and speaking like a southeast Kansas person.”
The president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and a native Kansan herself, Janet Murguia, released a statement yesterday condemning Peck’s remarks and calling them “deeply offensive.”
“It is despicable that Peck would invoke his Kansan heritage to defend his remarks. I was born and raised in Kansas, and the people I grew up with are hardworking people with close-knit families, good neighbors, and people of strong faith. They do not think that hunting human beings is funny. Peck owes his constituents and my home state an apology,” Murguia added.
Even though the House leadership issued a statement, in which they accepted Peck’s apology, the controversy did not end there.
Somos Republicans, a Hispanic GOP group from Arizona, also accepted Peck’s apology but is now demanding that the legislator be removed from his position as chairman of the Transportation and Public Safety Budget Committee.
“We believe that Peck cannot be entrusted the responsibility to serve as chairman of the Transportation and Public Safety Budget Committee, and we ask for the removal of Peck’s chairmanship by the Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike O’Neal, and Majority Leader, Rep. Arlen Siegfried,” the group said in a press release.
The group says Peck has compromised his ability to lead a committee that deals with public safety as a result of inciting potential violence with his remarks.
“There should be zero tolerance for advocating violence, and as such, we anticipate the Kansas Republican leadership’s removal of Peck’s Chairmanship due to the seriousness of this issue because we have watched hate crimes increase and Latinos murdered over this issue in the State of Arizona – the place of our headquarters.”
La Plaza has previously reported on the rising number of attacks against Latinos in the country since last year, many of which have been fatal. Most recently, a former member of the Minuteman militia (a group which has faced allegations of racism) was convicted and sentenced to death in Arizona for executing a deadly home invasion of a Mexican-American family which resulted in the murders of Brisenia Flores, just 9-years-old, and her father Raul Flores.
At the VERY LEAST he should be removed from this committee! His words are truly despicable.
Why hasn’t any of the Republican leadership come out and condemn this…do they not remember what just recently happened in Arizona to one of their own colleagues as result of hateful and violent rhetoric such as this…AND that poor little girl…actually two little girls dead now (Brisenia Flores and Christina Green) as a result of talk like this…what’s it going to take…
i think you should be removed permanently from your post…what just because we’re Hispanic we are thought of as animals???!!!