At a town hall event Monday in rural Iowa, Rep.Steve King (R-IA) compared immigrants to dogs, telling his constituents that the United States should only allow the best immigrants similar to the way dog buyers choose the “pick of the litter.”

King brought up his experience raising bird dogs to explain how the immigrant-dog metaphor works: “You want a good bird dog? You want one that’s going to be aggressive? Pick the one that’s the friskiest, the one that’s engaged the most, and not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner.”