Steven Krieser, the third-ranking official at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and appointee of Governor Scott Walker (R-Wis.), was fired on Thursday just two hours after he wrote an angry screed in a thread of Facebook comments reacting to a photo of a sign depicting a map of the United States with the superimposed words "USA" and "Illegal Immigrant Hunting Permit." "You may see Jesus when you look at [undocumented immigrants]", wrote Krieser in response to an earlier denouncement of the sign posted by former Republican representative Joe Handrick (R-Minocquoa). "I see Satan. And if they don't like it here, hey, the door they came through to get here swings both ways." The Wisconsin governor issued a statement calling the comments "repugnant" and "completely unacceptable".
"Governor Walker condemns [Krieser's] views," said spokesman Tom Evenson in the statement, "and they do not represent the governor or his administration in any way."
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Joe Handrick had written, in a previous post in the thread, that he "[didn't] find this sign funny at all."
"Here's food for thought for those who focus their anger on the illegal immigrants rather than on the failed system and those who refuse to enforce the law: About [sic] 2000 years ago there lived a man whom, if he came here, would be considered a foreigner, had olive skin, and didn't skin English [sic]. His name was Jesus."
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In response, Krieser wrote "Sorry, Joe, but I'm not with you on this one." He gave a halfheartedly conciliatory gesture in admitting that the sign was "probably over the top" before dealing out a series of a full-throated complaints. "The whole social safety net and educational systems of entire southern states have been crushed under the weight of these criminals who commit another crime with every breath they take here, having snuck across the border," he wrote, and went on to describe ranchers being "overrun with violent criminals who routinely raid their homes and trash their land as the stream of wretched criminals continues to flow unabated to the north."
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Krieser also blamed undocumented immigrants for inviting racially-tinged attacks upon themselves through their pro-reform campaigning. "The illegals themselves," he said, "have bred the animus that many American citizens feel toward them."
The Huffington Post notes that in 2011, Krieser drew ire from Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin for circulating a memo at the Department of Motor Vehicles advising employees not to volunteer information about how to obtain free voter identification cards.
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