Kris Kobach may be AWOL from the immigration debate this year, but he hasn’t been forgotten.
300 protestors from Sunflower Community Action and other pro-immigration reform groups gathered outside of Kobach’s Kansas home this weekend, chanting and calling on him to change his stance on deportations. They also left pairs and pairs of empty shoes at his doorstep, to signify families who have been torn apart by deportations since 2008.
“We are Kansas, and we demand that you stop spreading hate,” a protestor is heard saying in footage of the demonstration.
“We’ve left these shoes here so that Mr. Kobach can maybe try to fill them,” says a protestor in another clip. “Because these are the shoes of the fathers that he’s deported, that have been deported by his laws that he’s lobbied for and passed.”
Kobach is the Kansas Secretary of State, and infamous for authoring anti-immigrant state laws like Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56. Kobach was also Mitt Romney’s immigration advisor during the 2012 campaign, and encouraged Romney’s support of policies like self-deportation—which led to Romney’s dramatic loss of the Latino vote and the overall election. The Kansas protestors chose to come to Kobach’s house because previous actions—targeted at Kobach’s office—brought responses that Kobach’s office did not handle immigration, suggesting that his anti-immigrant activities were more of an extracurricular affair.
In responding to the weekend’s action, Kobach issued a menacing threat to the protestors who showed up.
“It’s important we recognize there’s a reason we have the Second Amendment,” he told Fox News. “There are situations like this where you have a mob and you do need to be able to protect yourself.”
As the Kansas City Star wrote:
While it’s understandable Kobach is upset about what happened at his residence, it’s alarming to hear him talk about essentially being ready to shoot one or more of those who showed up there on Saturday.
Alarming indeed. Very alarming.
