Jan Mickelson: Illegal immigrants who won't leave could be 'indentured for service'

Conservative radio talker Jan Mickelson is getting national attention for saying one way to handle immigrants in the country illegally would be to invite them to leave or else face being indentured for service building a border wall.

Media Matters, a liberal website that says it monitors and corrects "conservative misinformation," flagged Mickelson's remarks after his morning talk show Monday on WHO Radio in Des Moines.

"So if you are here without our permission," Mickelson said on his show Monday, "and we have given you two months to leave, and you're still here, and we find that you're still here after we we've given you the deadline to leave, then you become property of the state of Iowa. And we have a job for you. And we start using compelled labor. The people who are here illegally would therefore be owned by the state and become an asset of the state rather than a liability. And we start inventing jobs for them to do."

Media Matters wrote a headline that says Mickelson wants to "enslave undocumented immigrants unless they leave."

Mickelson told The Des Moines Register Thursday that he thinks "the outrage from the Media Matters ditto heads is contrived. They included the (audio) of my comments in context which is good, but almost nobody is listening to the premise, just looking at headline. 'Talk host wants to enslave immigrants.' "

Mickelson said he was responding to Fox News and a couple of presidential candidates, including Republican Donald Trump.

"They said it would be too expensive to deport 11 million illegals. And Trump wants to make Mexico pay for the wall. I said, 'We could fix two things the same way: Have the illegals build the wall and in Iowa put up some signs saying after 60 days illegals have to leave or become property of the state, indentured for service. In essence, illegals would volunteer by staying despite the notice,' " Mickelson told the Register.

He said Media Matters – which called him an "influential conservative kingmaker" who recently hosted GOP presidential candidates Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Rick Santorum – is trying to use him as a club to bludgeon candidates.

"I resent that because that's my job," he joked.

Mickelson said he offered the Media Matters team to come on his show, but so far they haven't accepted.