A speaker told a coalition of tea party groups in South Carolina on Monday that the U.S. could save $260 billion on the border fence if they “force these Mexicans to make $5 a day” to build it.

Speaking to the inaugural South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention, author Colin Heaton noted that he believed it would cost $400 billion to build a fence along the U.S. border if the government used labor unions.

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“I proposed a two dual-fence system, multi-tiered wall with a no man’s land — I put a minefield in there, but they said no — intrusion detection systems like we use in detecting tunnels with nitrous and oxygen emission control emitters to detect carbon dioxide upon exhalation of someone digging a tunnel,” he explained. “Then you pump gas in there, — tear gas, nothing lethal. Just make it come out the other side.”

“But what you do, you take all these incarcerated illegal aliens — even give some of the guys who are U.S. citizens in the U.S. prison system, who make about 27 cents a day doing ridiculous work — kick out the union labor charging $28 an hour, force these Mexicans and these other people to make $5 a day, making more money than they made in Mexico anyway,” Heaton continued. “Put them to work building a security fence under military and local-state law enforcement administration. … Projected budget: $140 billion, which will pay for itself in four years once you get them the hell out of here.”

Heaton went on to propose a large, single federal detention system to incarcerate undocumented immigrants, “sort of like a KOA Campground with walls.”

The tea party speaker also drew a comparison between Adolph Hitler and President Barack Obama, but admitted that the current White House resident would not have caused the Holocaust.

“The only difference between Adolph Hitler and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama not overtly ethnically challenged with regards to various groups and religious paradigms,” he said. “But socialism is alive and well in Washington.”

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Watch this video from CNN, broadcast Jan. 16, 2012.