On Monday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer called on the Obama Administration to end its “dangerous” policy of dropping off hundreds of illegal immigrants apprehended in Texas in Arizona. She also blasted the federal government for not giving Arizona a heads up, saying state officials first found out about the “unconscionable” policy through media reports.
“I urge you to end this dangerous and unconscionable policy immediately and insteadtake actions to fulfill the federal government’s fundamental responsibility of protecting ourhomeland by securing our nation’s borders,” Brewer wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama.
Brewer said that the country and Arizona face “significant challenges” from the Obama Administration’s “refusal to carry out its responsibility to secure our country’s southern border,” which has stretched state and local governments and law enforcement agencies “to the breaking point attempting to manage the enormity of these challenges.”
“It is especially disconcerting that DHS instituted this operation without any notification to my office, the Arizona Department of Public Safety or the Arizona Department of Homeland Security,” she wrote. “We instead learned of this action from the news media.”
Brewer said she was “deeply concerned about this troubling policy and the adverse impact on the illegal aliens, as well as to Arizona.” She mentioned that media reports have indicated that “many of the illegal aliens that DHS is releasing into Arizona from Texas are women, children, and unaccompanied juveniles” who have been abandoned “at the bus stations without any food, water or basic necessities.”
“I remind you that the daytime temperatures in Arizona during this time of year are regularly more than 100 degrees,” she added. “Consequently, this federal operation seems to place expediency over basic humanitarian concerns. The federal government should not shirk its lawful responsibility to care for and properly process these individuals.”
Brewer asked the Obama Administration to answer who authorized the policy and why Arizona was chosen as the target, when the policy was initiated and how much longer the operation will proceed, how many illegal immigrants have designated Arizona as their ultimate destination, how many illegal aliens have been designated as a “family unit” and how many have been designated as “unaccompanied juveniles,” what the federal government knows about the background of the illegal immigrants being released in Arizona, what proactive steps the federal government is taking to process the illegal immigrants dropped off in Arizona, what has caused the massive influx of illegal aliens, and what is being done to secure the border in Texas to prevent the need to release more illegal immigrants in Arizona.
Immigration officials have reportedly been transporting illegal immigrants from Texas to Arizona for the past eight months, but, as Breitbart Texas has reported, the problem has intensified in the last few weeks as Border Patrol agents along Texas’s Rio Grande Valley (RVG) “are apprehending about 1,000 illegal immigrants per day.” Local citizens do not even know where some of the illegal immigrants are headed after they are dropped off at bus stations in Arizona.
Shawn Moran, a spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, which is the U.S. Border Patrol union, told the Associated Press that “this shows that our strategy is poorly thought out” because illegal immigrants will go where agents are not.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection must “turn over unaccompanied youths within 72 hours to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which places them in shelters while attempting to locate family or other sponsors with whom they can live while their immigration cases are being adjudicated.” While those from Mexico can be returned immediately across the border, many minors who are not from Mexico are eventually given asylum hearings.
As AZCentral.com noted, ICE officials have said that “migrants will have to check in with their local ICE office within 15 days or they’ll be classified as fugitives.”
Glenn Spencer, the president of the American Border Patrol, also said the Obama Administration’s actions send the wrong message to those thinking about illegally entering the United States.
“I would expect a surge across the Texas border and expect to see a lot more of this,” he told CBS Phoenix. “If you are living in Central America in tough conditions, all you have to do is get across the Rio Grande River and you are going to do it. I think it sends the wrong message.”
Immigration officials conceded to the Los Angeles Times that “changes in U.S. policy to expand legal residence opportunities in the U.S. for undocumented youth” have played a big role in the increase in illegal border crossings, especially among children.
As Breitbart News reported, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) National Council President Kenneth Palinkas warned of this surge of illegal immigrant children after the House GOP leadership released its “immigration principles” that declared one of the “founding principles of our country” is “that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents.” Palinkas implied if that is true, Congress would have to grant perpetual amnesty to illegal immigrant children, which would give illegal immigrants even more incentive to flood across the border with hopes of getting amnesty.
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