October 17, 2010: Alaska Senate Candidate Says US Should Emulate East German Border Security Practices

East German guards carry the body of a slain child back over the border, in this undated photo. [Source: Ben and Bawb's Blog (.com)]Alaska candidate for US Senate Joe Miller (R-AK) tells a crowd at a town hall meeting in an Anchorage middle school that the US should emulate the effectiveness of the former East German border control system to keep illegal immigrants out. A Miller supporter asks Miller how he thinks the US should stop illegal immigrants. Miller responds that the way to stop illegal immigration is to build a fence at the border (he does not say the northern or southern border), and cites the effectiveness of the East Germans in controlling their borders. East Germany, under Soviet control, built the infamous Berlin Wall, and hundreds of people were killed by East German border patrol officials trying to sneak out of East Germany into West Germany. Miller says he got a first-hand look at the barbed wire and concrete divide as a West Point cadet when he was sent to the Fulda Gap near Frankfurt, “when the wall was still up between East and West Germany.” Miller says, “East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow.” Perhaps referring to the machine gun nests on and around the wall, and the border guards with standing orders to shoot to kill, Miller adds: “Obviously there were other things that were involved, but we have the capacity as a great nation to obviously secure our border. If East Germany could do it, we could do it.” [Anchorage Daily News, 10/18/2010] After the town hall event, a group of Miller’s private security guards forcibly detain and handcuff a reporter who attempts to question Miller (see October 17, 2010).