Missouri Republican State Sen.-elect David Gregory is facing criticism for proposing a bill in which residents would be paid bounty rewards for turning in undocumented immigrants to law enforcement.
Senate Bill 72, introduced by Sen. Gregory, seeks to establish a “Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program” in which Missouri residents can register as bounty hunters and receive $1,000 for apprehending an undocumented immigrant, according to Fox 2 Now.
“Right now, it sounds like the public will not only be finger-pointing but may also be subjected to various forms of discrimination,” said Democrat State Sen. Brian Williams of North St. Louis County. “Missourians expect us to find solutions and not point fingers and not point people out of a public lineup.”
“I don’t know how you do something like this without just stopping every brown person and demanding to see their ‘papers,'” said civil rights attorney Javad Khazaeli of the Khazaeli/Wyrsch firm, who also called Gregory’s bill “unAmerican”.
“For someone like me who’s a civil rights attorney, this is going to be a boon,” he said later. “You’re going to have a Puerto Rican walking down the street, gets tackled, and people are going to be like, ‘We caught one’, and they don’t know Puerto Ricans are Americans.”
Sen. Gregory’s campaign was heavily focused on securing the border between the United States and Mexico, including plans to create a new criminal charge called “trespass by an illegal alien” that undocumented immigrants could face.
Gregory proposed that the offense be punished with up to life in prison.
“Let’s do this right to protect our people because immigration is good,” Gregory told the crowd. “Illegal immigration is bad.”
“The immigrants and refugees we work with have made our country more welcoming, healthy, and prosperous for all,” said a spokeswoman for the International Institute of St. Louis, which helps migrants and refugees with their re-settlements.
