Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) on Wednesday connected the Monday bombings in Boston to the immigration debate and warned that “radical Islamists” were “being trained to come in and act like Hispanics.”

During an interview on C-SPAN, host Greta Wodele Brawner asked the Texas Republican about a bipartisan “Gang of Eight” proposal in the Senate that would increase funding for border security by $5.5 billion over ten years and establish a 13-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

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“What I first thought after my prayers went for the victims and the families in Boston is, ‘My gosh, we’ve seen this in Israel,'” Gohmert recalled. “And after Israel had to suffer the slings and arrows and the deaths and the maimings… Finally the Israeli people said, ‘You know what? Enough.’ They built, over 70 percent of it is just a fence, and the rest is a wall, prevents snipers from knocking off their kids. And they finally stopped the domestic violence from people that wanted to destroy them.”

“And I’m concerned we need to do that as well,” he insited.

Pressing Gohmert, the C-SPAN host noted that Rep. Steve King (-R-IA) had speculated that the Boston bombings were perpetrated by a “foreign national” and that Congress should proceed with caution on immigration reform.

“We know that al Qaeda has camps with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border,” Gohmert agreed. “We know that people are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanics when they’re radical Islamists. We know these things are happening, and it’s just insane to not protect ourselves and make sure that people come in — as most people do, they want the freedoms we have.”

Watch the video below video from C-SPAN, broadcast April 17, 2013.

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(h/t: Think Progress)