(Radio Iowa) – Republican Congressman Steve King says if diplomacy fails, sending the military to the border to repel a large group of asylum seekers is the only option. King says there is legislation that could be passed in congress, but he expects a confrontation at the southern border “pretty soon after the Election.”

“Send the military down and line them up shoulder-to-shoulder on the Rio Grande and if those inflatable boats come over, loaded full of illegals, you just step our military down into the water and you hold those boats off the shore and load those illegals onto U.S. boats, take them back to Mexico and then destroy those rafts,” King says. “Just poke a hole in them sink ’em right there.”

King says a soverign nation must protect its borders and enforce its immigration laws. “It looks like an invasion. It’s twice the size of Santa Anna’s army when he invaded Texas and they’re just not wearing uniforms and all of them aren’t armed, but they’re marching under their own national flags towards the border, announcing they’re going to cross into the United States and that they have a right to migrate into the United States,” King says. “And, of course, they do not.”

King says if this group of migrants get through the southern border, there will be an “endless stream” of people stetching from Central America through Mexico, aiming to enter the United States. “When you reward lawbreakers, you get more lawbreakers,” King says. “This could destroy the immigration rule of law in America if we don’t hold it now.”

King made his comments last (Thursday) night after a Plymouth County “meet and greet” in Le Mars. King is seeking a 10th term in the U.S .House this year. King’s Democratic opponent is J.D. Scholten of Sioux City.