Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is tired of the Obama administration asserting that the border is more secure than ever. In an interview with Politico, Brewer said “It’s Jay Leno comedy every other week,” referring to President Obama’s upcoming trip to Phoenix and California, where he’ll tape an interview with Leno.
Although Brewer said some areas in her state are relatively secure, she described Tucson as a "nightmare," and noted that Arizona is the gateway.
“We don’t even know who is coming across. We don’t know how many times they’re coming back and forth, when they’re not counting the ones that are turned back around.
“Everybody that you talk to has different numbers: Border Patrol … Homeland Security … the sheriffs,” she added. “It’s the drug cartels that we live with … the drop houses, the extortion, the sex-slavery industry, the gangs fighting one another.”
The governor said “the frustration level has only increased” among Arizonans since she signed Senate Bill 1070 into law in 2010.
“How many times do people have to say, ‘secure our borders,’ and be rebuffed?” she said.
Brewer knows a comprehensive immigration reform bill will not pass in the form it came out in the Senate, which is why she’s urging the Arizona House delegation and grassroots conservatives to put the pressure on members across the nation during August recess to oppose the bill.
We’re not going to live through 1986 once again, where President Reagan – my hero – gave amnesty and said our borders would be secured and it didn’t take. It didn’t happen.”
Brewer called on Congress Saturday to pass a standalone border security bill before getting to everything else. She wants a commission or board comprising border-state governors, border patrol leaders and local sheriffs to agree on metrics for what would constitute a secure border.
“Border security absolutely has to come first,” she said. “That’s got to be done first because I don’t think the general public is going to support anything that’s done until the border is secured.
As Michelle Malkin says, however, it shouldn’t be border security first—it should be secure the border, period.
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