In a stunning online rant, a top Gov. Scott Walker official likened illegal immigrants to Satan during a Facebook debate over a bumper sticker declaring open season on foreigners living in the United States without documentation.
“You may see Jesus when you look at them,” Steven Krieser, assistant deputy secretary at the state Department of Transportation, wrote Tuesday regarding illegal immigrants. “I see Satan.”
Krieser wrote that a “stream of wretched criminals” is crossing the border without obstruction. These individuals, he said, “completely ruined” entire states and industries, breeding “the animus that many American citizens feel toward them.”
Folks, you just can’t make this stuff up.
When will some Republicans learn that public displays of racism needs to be as subtle as possible?
This is the same idiot, by the way, who directed DoT employees to keep free, state-issued photo IDs, if one can find a DoT facility open, as quiet as possible, in a story broken by the Cap Times in 2011. For his voter suppression actions, Walker appointed and promoted Krieser to department’s executive assistant.
As the AP’s Scott Bauer later reported (September 7, 2011):
An internal email dated July 1, the day the department started issuing the IDs, shows that staff members with the Division of Motor Vehicles were told by transportation official Steven Krieser to issue the cards for free only if customers asked for them. Workers with the Division of Motor Vehicles are employed by the Department of Transportation.
“While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it,” Krieser said in the memo … .
Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Waunakee also released the memo Wednesday and sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb in which the lawmaker said not helping people get free IDs was unacceptable.
“Helping people obtain a free ID card to vote should be no different than any other service the Department of Transportation offers as an agent of the people of this state,” Erpenbach wrote. “This is a job that has been assigned to your department of the Legislature and one we expect you to do without prejudice.”
Krieser was a mid-level office chief at the time he sent the email, but was appointed last month to be the department’s executive assistant. He stood by the instructions in an interview … .