It’s not so bad to deport children to what was until recently the murder capital of the world, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said recently, since Honduras is “a beautiful country” with “gorgeous resort zones.” More than 200,000 unaccompanied minors or mothers traveling with their children have fled to the United States from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador over the last two years, with many of them asking for asylum or other humanitarian relief.

All three countries are plagued by out-of-control gang violence and inadequate criminal justice systems. El Salvador and Guatemala are both still recovering from civil wars that ended in the 1990s, while Honduras suffered a coup in 2009. But the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairman said he saw on a recent three-day trip to Honduras and Guatemala that the implication that deporting children there is “sending them into a war zone” is incorrect.

“I honestly don’t know who comes up with these allegations,” Johnson stated. “I mean sure, Honduras, as well as both Guatemala and El Salvador, does have its fair share of problems with organized crime, drug trafficking and murder rates, but that doesn’t mean that it represents a bad place to live and raise a family. Heck, if I weren’t a politician with an important job, I’d move to Honduras permanently.”

He also added that deporting children and their mothers to Honduras is “an act of mercy and protection,” seeing how “many American cities have higher crime and murder rates” than the three aforementioned countries.

“I mean, come on people, Detroit has a higher crime rate than Honduras. What does that tell you? I have nothing against helping those in trouble and offering them a better and safer life, but if we let all those people into the country and then allow them to settle in, say, Detroit, we’ll be condemning them to an early death by the hands of criminals. That’s why deporting them back to their own countries is an act of mercy and protection, not an act of racism and refusal,” he also said.

“But, we’ll fix the crime problem in Detroit and many other American cities soon,” Johnson added. “And then I’ll go down and bring all those people back here myself. That’s how much I care about them.”