Ben Carson takes immigration debate to insane new low, floats drone strikes at border

"You look at some of these caves and things out there one drone strike, boom, and they'd gone"

By Sophia Tesfaye

Senior Politics Editor

Published August 19, 2015 7:17PM (EDT)

  (AP/Lenny Ignelzi)
(AP/Lenny Ignelzi)

After drawing a larger crowd at his hastily announced Phoenix rally than celebrity presidential aspirant Donald Trump did back in July, neurosurgeon Ben Carson one-upped his rival by suggesting the use of drone strikes to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

Carson toured the border with controversial Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu today and according to Dennis Welch, who was covering the event for KTVK-TV Phoenix, Carson seemed to suggest that he supported drone strikes on U.S. soil in order to protect the border:

Tami Houey of KPHO reported that Carson further clarified his thoughts on drone strikes on the border, "The take home point is this. We have excellent military leaders," he said. "We need to employ their expertise because this is a war we are fighting. That's the bottom line."

Carson previously suggested securing the border by use of drones in a World Net Daily interview last month:

This is a problem. It's a huge problem. And we've allowed it to become a political football, instead of solving it. Could we seal the border? Of course. We have all kinds of technology, including drones

Carson, who has surged into second place only to Trump in a recent poll, criticized Trump's plan to deport undocumented immigrants and build a massive wall at the border as expensive and unrealistic but did agree with the GOP frontrunner on at least one aspect of his extreme anti-immigration platform -- the need to revoke birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.

“I know the 14th Amendment has been brought up recently, about anchor babies—and it doesn’t make any sense to me that people could come in here, have a baby and that baby becomes an American citizen,” Carson said at a Phoenix rally in front of 6,000 supporters Tuesday evening. "There are many countries in the world where they simply have recognized that and don’t allow that to occur."


By Sophia Tesfaye

Sophia Tesfaye is Salon's senior editor for news and politics, and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.

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