An Oregon National Guardsman is facing disciplinary action after suggesting that undocumented immigrants are “lucky we aren’t executing them.”
Private First Class Gerod Martin wrote the offensive comment Wednesday on a Facebook page to raise funds for the Texas-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.
“Waste of money,” Martin, 21, wrote in a comment that has since been deleted. “They’re lucky we aren’t executing them.”
Martin’s Facebook account appears to have been deleted as well, or has been set to private. Screenshots of Martin’s page show him wearing his Oregon National Guard uniform in his profile picture. “Just a young buck serving his country,” he wrote on the page.
Martin’s comments violated the uniform code of military justice, Maj. Stephen Bomar of the Oregon National Guard told ABC affiliate KATU. He said the organization will hold Martin accountable for his actions but hasn’t decided on a punishment yet.
“This was a clear violation in uniform to say anything like that, or anything political because we enforce the policies of our politicians,” Bomar said. “That was just a horrific comment.”
The Oregon National Guard has strict rules on social media conduct, Bomar added.
“One of our policies is to conduct yourself as though you’re a servicemember 24/7,” he said. “Even if you are working a civilian job, you are still part of our team and need to remember to have those values wherever you go.”
HuffPost was unable to reach Martin for comment.
The viral Facebook fundraiser to help immigrant families, which a couple in California created last week in response to the Trump administration’s highly controversial family separation policy, has raised over $20 million.
Backlash over the policy prompted President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to end family separation at the border by detaining children and parents together.