Gov. Jan Brewer has been under fire for saying this about illegal immigrants during the gubernatorial debate:
The majority of them in my opinion and I think in the opinion of law enforcement is that they are not coming here to work. They are coming here and they’re bringing drugs. And they’re doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families.
The Arizona Guardian caught up with Brewer to ask her to clarify her comments. Her new spin, as you can watch above, is that migrant workers get turned into drug mules by the coyotes working for cartels.
It’s certainly true that the drug cartels are increasingly involved in smuggling people across the border. And the cartels have the leverage to turn illegal immigrants into low-level drug mules.
But it’s nothing more than fearmongering to say that the majority of people entering this country illegally don’t want work, but instead want plan to take up lives of crime revolving around drugs and kidnapping.
But hey: She told Fox News that Arizona has been under “terrorist attacks” from immigrants, too.
Update: The Guardian reports that Brewer’s staff now says she “misspoke” and has had “missteps” with the numbers.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.
At the end of the day, does it REALLY matter what they’re coming here for? Regardless of whether or not they’re muling drugs, establishing drop houses, etc., they’re coming here ILLEGALLY, and DO NOT BELONG HERE. God knows that even ONE illegal immigrant involved in criminal activity on this side of the border is one too many… and we all know that the real number is far greater than one. Let’s stop the madness, seal the border, and deport the illegals. And while we’re at it, let’s impeach the empty suit who calls himself the President of this great country for refusing to enforce the law of the land.
Yes, it DOES matter why people are coming across the border. No one is claiming that border crossers who are coming without legal authority is a good thing. But it’s a hell of a lot better to have people coming here to work, pay taxes, buy things in our local stores, et cetera, than it is to have drug smugglers and human smugglers coming across the border carrying firearms and endangering American citizens and other border crossers.
You’ll never seal the border. It’s not possible.
And your idiotic call to impeach the president is ludicrous. You want to impeach the current sitting president, when every president that I can remember over the past thirty years has ignored our borders and the issues of illegal border crossers. There is no incentive for any politician to “seal the border.” There are too many people making too much money because of those illegal border crossers for ANY politician to make more than a token attempt to boost border security.
If you live on the Arizona border, let’s see what your family feels like.
Arizona: The state that makes Texas look good! Somehow we Californians made this immigration thing work without all the hype and disgust you Arizonians seem to have against the “brown skinned people”. In fact, look at our Govenator: He’s an immigrant, and might have been asked by your cops to “show papers” if he was not so famous (the accent folks, not the skin color in this case). Of course I’m talking slow so “You All” (All Y’all don’t use Y’all cause your not southerners even if you have some racist tendencies in this law). And our Governor was elected, mostly by, our Hispanic voters. In fact, President Obama was elected mostly by people of color…Hmmm, so if we ban the brown man republiscum would be elected and Arizona has a (R) governor–What a coincidence. I take back everything I said about Arizona, it’s only the republiscum and Tea Baggers that are really behind this–politics that rip families apart so you can get more votes, NICE! Democrat, Californian, for all the right reasons.
Arizona, the gift, that keeps giving. Keep it coming, we need to know what Arizona is really all about.
California. . . .far from perfect. You certainly have made this whole immigration thing work out, you’re invaded by them. What the rest of the country doesn’t seem to understand is that no one here is against immigration, just illegal immigration. People from Mexico seem to think that their plight overrides the rest of the world’s. Immigrants from all over the world, that come from very bad places, take the time to do things right. Cops around here, and in California, do a great job of protecting us, we trust on a daily basis that they will use good judgement. The second this law kicks in they will all be racist pigs? One in four police officers in Tucson is hispanic. . . There are far more important things that other states show be addressing instead of a law that mirrors federal law that has been in place for decades. Oh, by the way, I am “brown”, born in Mexico and a LEGAL immigrant to this great country. My family took the time to do things right.
I agree California is far from perfect, however, Arizona has a racist streak, regardless of how your family got there. How about that whole Martin Luther King bit? Arizona was not the only one, but it was fairly vocal in their opposition to observing MLK day. And you mention one in four police are Hispanic, guess what? More than one in four police in Arizona have come out against this bill! So I would not say that Hispanic police officers are thrilled by this. Lastly, consider that Indians and then Mexico had Arizona first, but might makes right, right? So we take Mexico over and now they are returning the favor–Karma Man. Besides I love Mexican Food–Beinvenidos Amigos!
No, it doesn’t matter why they are coming past the border. ILLEGAL IS ILLEGAL!!! It’s breaking the law! I swear it. I think these people are just plain dense!
Jan Brewer for President! Finally someone in office that is looking out for her state and enforcing the same law that has been ignored by the feds for 20+ years. I wish all of our elected officals had Nads that big! What a woman. Go Arizona! Hey California, consider yourself boycotted.
Actually, California has boycotted Arizona since its inception as we preferred to keep the coast and let Y’all have the desert. Besides that, Illegal is illegal is just a political expediency being used by Republiscum to erase the votes of people they know their ideology cannot win over. Jan’s comments simply show that she has seen and heard the Tea Party Express and is looking become their leader (at least she did not quit as Governor). Unfortunately, she either believes what she said about the border crossers being Drug Mules which makes her ignorant, or more likely, she is reading the Tea Party Talking Points and is cynically “doing the FOX thing” figuring if she uses her position as a leader that the “lower class” will simply believe it and the upper class will use it as cover for their own racist or selfish needs. Either way it is the worst of the worst in politics and its coming from an (R) which is not a shock–just the rhetoric is!
Wow Arrugula2, that is a pretty strong arguement you make. Once again the race card comes out, the liberal shield. It’ s funny how some minorites go there whole lives without seeing racism, lead successful lives, never making excuses. . .while other minorites see it everywhere and in everything. . .especially when things don’t go their way. Regardless of political views, we cannot choose which laws to follow and which to ignore. The gov. obviously misspoke and now everyone wants to jump on that, regardless of the reasons why they came here. . .if they don’t do it thru the port of entry. .they’re breaking the law!!! As far as Mexico, well we’ve all seen what a great country that’s turned out to be, I don’t see many people running into that country. Viva Mexico.
Right on! I’ve worked right on the border at Tjuana building the new fence and have seen first hand the invasion forces. 24/7, our country is under attack. The ONLY “right” an illegal has is to be safely escorted to the border and expelled. Obama and his “socially progressive” staff are the greatest threat our country has faced yet.
A good overview in this opinion piece from the New Yorker:
“Borderlines”
at:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010…