Good riddance to New York Rep. Peter King, who announced on Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2020, “joining a growing exodus of Republicans from Congress ahead of the 2020 elections,” The New York Times reported. It’s particularly welcome news when it comes to trying to bring some basic decency to Congress, because King, one immigrant rights leader in the state noted, “has been a consistent voice of intolerance and exclusion.”
Another New York leader had some … different thoughts. “King stood head & shoulders above everyone else,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer decided to say out loud in a now-ratioed tweet. “He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles. He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3. I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship.”
If Schumer meant King “never let others push him away from his principles” of being a bigoted, loud-mouthed asshole, then he would be absolutely right, because King—despite expressing openness to comprehensive immigration reform in the past—has made anti-immigrant callousness, particularly in the Trump era, a key feature of his soon-to-be-finished congressional career.
Following the deaths of two children in federal immigration custody nearly a year ago, King’s reaction was to praise Immigration and Customs Enforcement for an “excellent record,” his reasoning being that it was “only two children” who had died under U.S. watch. Only two children. Those babies, seven-year-old Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin and eight-year-old Felipe Alonzo-Gómez, would eventually become two of the at least seven children who have horrifically died after being taken into custody by the Trump administration.
But King’s contempt includes the immigrant community at-large. When immigration rights advocates went to Washington, D.C. to urge legislators to swiftly pass permanent protections for undocumented immigrant youth following the Trump administration’s cruel and unlawful termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, King told one immigrant leader, “You should thank God for ICE agents.”
Walter Barrientos, the man on the receiving end of King’s statement, “did not respond in kind,” Think Progress reported at the time. King probably wasn’t aware that Barrientos had actually spent two days in federal immigration detention when Border Patrol agents raided the Amtrak train he was on and took him into custody. He was freed after paying a $10,000 bond. “I do not thank God for ICE agents, I was arrested too,” he told King. “They almost deported me.”
King also had nothing but praise for Donald Trump’s bigoted Muslim ban, calling it "long overdue" and claiming that "the threat comes from within the Muslim community. We can’t be politically correct.” King was in fact trying to make Islamophobia a matter of public policy when Trump was still hosting reality television, organizing anti-Muslim hearings when he chaired the Homeland Security Committee, and following the 2016 election, he urged Trump to create a federal program to spy on Muslim-Americans.
But sure, King “fiercely loved America,” minus, you know, many of the people who make up America but look and pray and speak differently than him. Congress will be better off without Peter King—and Democrats would be better off if they stop enabling Republicans who embody the worst of humanity just because they’ve shared friendly words over the years in passing.