“Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Saturday that if he were elected president he would combat illegal immigration by creating a system to track foreign visitors the way FedEx tracks packages. Christie, who is far back in the pack of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said at a campaign event in New Hampshire that he would ask the chief executive of FedEx, Frederick W. Smith, to devise the tracking system.
“Immigration has become a top issue in the Republican campaign, with the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, having vowed to deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and to build a wall along the United States’ southern border. “At any moment, FedEx can tell you where that package is. It’s on the truck. It’s at the station. It’s on the airplane,” Christie told the crowd in Laconia, N.H. “Yet we let people come to this country with visas, and the minute they come in, we lose track of them.”
Several days later, in an interview with Newslo, Christie also stated that “tattooing unique ID numbers on immigrants’ arms wouldn’t be a bad idea, as it would greatly facilitate the entire tracking process.” When asked whether such practice would raise ethical issues regarding the fact that human beings would be treated as mere objects, he responded, “No, not at all. Today’s technology is very sophisticated and those tattoos wouldn’t necessarily have to be permanent. They could be made to last a year or several years. Anything is possible these days.”
Later during the interview, Newslo’s reporter attempted to remind Christie that tattooing unique identification numbers onto people (prisoners of war) was done by the Nazis in World War II, and that repeating such practice would likely have far-reaching consequences for immigrants who would almost be branded like cattle.
“So, what’s your point?” Christie reacted vigorously. “What are you trying to say? That Republicans are like Nazis? Listen, buddy, my job is to protect this country and its residents by any means necessary, and if that means offering free tattoos to a bunch of people who want the American dream but don’t want to struggle for it like the rest of us, then so be it. I’ll agree to being called the bad guy now, but I assure you that my name will be spoken with awe in the future.”
The New Jersey governor also added: “Besides, nobody said that they’re gonna be ugly tattoos. I mean, I’ve gone through the entire FedEx rulebook and there is nothing in there about ink color and font style and all that stuff. I’m sure the government won’t object to hiring famous tattoo artists to do the tattoos and make them nice and unique. It won’t necessarily be a traumatic experience, nobody is saying that. Trust me – by the time I’m done with the process, we’re going to have immigrants begging to have their ID tattoos done by the U.S. government, that’s how good I’m going to make it. And when we run out of unique ID numbers, we’ll just switch to bar-codes and branding. Heck, I’ll even leave that optional.”
