A wannabe Republican senator who was pardoned by Donald Trump for alleged involvement in the January 6 riots says a far-right group should ‘bounty hunt’ migrants.
Jake Lang, who is hoping to win Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s seat in the Florida Senate elections, made the remarks to Newsweek.
‘I would deputise the Proud Boys and the January 6 Patriots to bounty hunt illegal immigrants,’ he said.
The Proud Boys, founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes – a co-founder of Vice Media – is a far-right, all-male group which describes itself as ‘Western chauvinists who refuse to apologise for creating the modern world’.
The group takes its name from the song Proud Of Your Boy, which featured in the musical version of Disney’s movie Aladdin.
Their members have to publicly declare they are a Proud Boy and a Trump supporter, with the group’s ideas including ‘glorify the entrepreneur’, ‘close the border’, ‘end welfare’, and ‘give everyone a gun’ as well as redefining traditional gender roles (or as they put it ‘venerate the housewife’).
Trump has appeared to openly endorse the group.
In 2020, when asked: ‘Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups?’ Trump said: ‘I’m willing to do anything. I want peace.’
Biden then urged the president, ‘Do it. Say it. ‘What do you want me to say?’ Trump said, ‘What do you want to call them? Give me a name.’
‘White supremacists,’ the moderator Wallace said. Trump responded, ‘Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,’ in an apparent friendly reference to the group.
Lang continued: ‘We would offer a bounty and work with local sheriffs and deputise and give legal access to be able to have these people join en masse and be able to work alongside federal law enforcement to provide tips, to provide information, and to go out and make the arrests of these illegal immigrants.’
Though he never stood trial for his allegations in the January 6 insurrection, he was pardoned by Trump when he took office.
His remarks come at a turbulent time in the US, with ICE raids increasing in cities across the nation.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security shared a video of immigrants being arrested, spliced together with the Pokémon theme tune.
Captioned ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All’, the clip was a clear imitation of the popular anime, with images of Ash Ketchum and Pokémon balls cut together with footage of people being handcuffed.
The Pokémon Company International confirmed to Metro that the company was not involved in the distribution of the video.
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