X deletes menacing tweet from GOP congressman fantasizing about murdering an immigrant

In a tweet posted Thursday, a sitting member of Congress posted about murdering an undocumented immigrant using a method deployed by one of the most oppressive regimes of the 20th century.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) quote-tweeted one of his Republican colleagues, Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-New York), who was responding to a Fox News video showing undocumented immigrants arrested for assaulting NYPD officers leaving custody. In the video, one of the alleged assailants gave two middle fingers to a Fox News photographer, prompting D'Esposito to tweet, "we feel the same way about you. Holla at the cartels and have them escort you back."

In the now-deleted post, Collins wrote "or we could buy him a ticket on Pinochet Air for a free helicopter ride back."

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Before X/Twitter took action to delete the tweet, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) drew the scorn of hundreds of people. MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted that "sitting members of congress calling for murdering people using the Pinochet regime's preferred method of dropping them out of helicopters is really not great."

Huffpost reporter Christopher Mathias contextualized Collins' tweet, saying it was "parroting a meme that’s been popular among white supremacists & neofascists like the Proud Boys for the last 7 or so years."

The tweet is a reference to far-right Chilean dictator Agosto Pinochet's reign of terror, in which left-leaning political dissidents were captured, tortured and sometimes murdered. One of the more notable examples is that of musician and activist Victor Jara, who was rounded up by Pinochet's forces and tortured in Chile Stadium in the weeks following his US-backed September 11, 1973 coup that deposed democratically elected president Salvador Allende. CNN reported that Jara's body was found with more than 40 bullet wounds and signs of torture.

Collins has not yet addressed the tweet, though his colleagues may do so in the future. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) was censured by the House of Representatives and temporarily removed from all of his committee assignments over a video posted to his social media depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) with a sword. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Georgia) trafficking in racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories also resulted in Democrats voting to strip her of her committee assignments.

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