In the address, delivered at a rally in Temecula, he used Alamo imagery and said criminal gang members in the U.S. illegally amounted to an insurgency. He exhorted his audience of about 200 people to rise and join his fight to stop illegal border crossings.

“I am not backing away from the fact that we are in a war,” Donnelly told reporters in Sacramento on Tuesday, after reports of the speech caused an outcry. He said he did not believe the remarks would hurt his prospects among Latino voters.

Kashkari and a handful of Republican officials criticized the lawmaker’s sentiments.

“Once again Assemblyman Donnelly’s comments are outrageous and divisive,” Kashkari said in a statement. “This is not who we are as Republicans and is not who we are as Californians.”

Connie Conway, leader of the Assembly’s Republican caucus — Donnelly’s nominal boss in the Legislature — also chastised him.

“Mr. Donnelly’s opinions are his and his alone and are not representative of the Republicans in this [Capitol] building,” she said in a statement to The Times.

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