Iowa-based radio host Jan Mickelson fell under national scrutiny over the last week following comments he made on his program on August 17, in which he suggested that undocumented immigrants, remaining in Iowa after a proposed warning to leave the country, should proceed to become property of the state.

A discussion on Mickelson’s program about immigration led to comments about how to pursue the departure of undocumented immigrants from Iowa. Mickelson said that he had introduced an idea about placing signs throughout the state:

[quote_box_center]”I would just say this: ‘As of this date’ — whenever we decide to do this — ‘as of this date, 30–‘ this is a totally arbitrary number, ’30 to 60 days from now anyone who is in the state of Iowa that is not here legally and cannot demonstrate their legal status to the satisfaction of the local and state authorities here in the State of Iowa, become property of the State of Iowa.’ So if you are here without our permission, and we have given you two months to leave, and you’re still here, and we find that you’re still here after we we’ve given you the deadline to leave, then you become property of the state of Iowa, and we have a job for you. And we start using compelled labor, the people who are here illegally would therefore be owned by the state and become an asset of the state rather than a liability and we start inventing jobs for them to do.”[/quote_box_center]

Mickelson went on to show support for the building of a wall between the United States and Mexico, similar to a proposal made by presidential candidate Donald Trump, but Mickelson went further and said that the wall should be built by undocumented immigrants:

[quote_box_center]We say, ‘Hey, we are not going to make Mexico pay for the wall, we’re going to invite the illegal Mexicans and illegal aliens to build it. If you have come across the border illegally, again give them another 60-day guideline, you need to go home and leave this jurisdiction, and if you don’t you become property of the United States, and guess what? You will be building a wall. We will compel your labor. You would belong to these United States. You show up without an invitation, you get to be an asset. You get to be a construction worker. Cool!'[/quote_box_center]

Media Matters created an audio excerpt of Mickelson’s comments, which can be heard below. The full show containing the comments is available here.

A caller identified as a man named Fred phoned into his program and said that Mickelson’s proposal was a “clever idea,” but noted that people would think it “sounds like slavery.” 

Fred: “Well, I think everybody would believe it sounds like slavery?

Mickelson: “Well, what’s wrong with slavery?

Fred: “Well, we know what’s wrong with slavery.”

Mickelson: “Well, apparently we don’t because when we allow millions of people to come into the country who aren’t here legally and people who are here are indentured to those people to pay their bills, their education of their kids, pay for their food, their food stamps, their medical bills, in some cases even subsidize their housing, and somehow the people who own the country, who pay the bills, pay the taxes, they get indentured to the new people who are not even supposed to be here. Isn’t that a lot like slavery?”

Mickelson, whose comments have been criticized by the media across the U.S. including in a Des Moines Register column, made additional clarifications of his back-and-forth with the caller on his program.

“That was a rhetorical question to a caller who that making criminals pay restitution sounds like slavery. When I asked, ‘What’s wrong with slavery?’ I wasn’t advocating the chattel slavery outlawed by the 13th Amendment, but proceeding to a discussion of the indentured servitude permitted by the 13th Amendment for the payment of restitution,” Mickelson wrote.

“The conversation was cut short, and the thought was never completed. Media Matters (a hard left George Soros funded Democrat front group) used that incomplete conversation to assert that I recommended the enslavement of all immigrants. Rubbish.”

On his August 24 program, Mickelson said, “Iowans are passive-aggressive and really, really good at this kind of stuff, I suggested we could do a variation on that in Iowa, just put up four signs saying that if you’re here after 60 days you become property of the state and you’ll be doing community service for Iowa. Just signs. That’s all I said, just put up signs, which is typical of Iowa passive-aggressives. We can just put up a hostile sign and that will fix the problem.”