During a town hall meeting on Monday, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, likened American “legal” immigration to the process of selecting a  “good bird dog.”

“You want a good bird dog? You want one that’s going to be aggressive? Pick the one that’s the friskiest, the one that’s engaged the most and not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner,” King said, referencing the Labradors he has at his home.

“You get the pick of the litter and you got yourself a pretty good bird dog. Well, we’ve got the pick of every donor civilization on the planet,” he added. “It’s hard to get here, they had to be inspired to come — we’ve got the vigor from the planet to come to America.”

The point seemed to be that the U.S. historically has attracted the “pick of the litter,” the very best immigrants with the drive to succeed in America.

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