Gov. Janet Napolitano declared an emergency along Arizona’s border with Mexico on Monday, making up to $1.5 million available to beleaguered local governments.
Napolitano’s declaration comes three days after a similar move by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who made up to $1.75 million in emergency funds available to four southwestern border counties in his state.
In both states, border communities have become portals for a steady flow of illegal migrants who often pay thousands of dollars and risk death to come to the United States.
With them has come a surge in vehicle thefts, drug smuggling and property damage – crimes Napolitano said her declaration is aimed at addressing.
Anyone think Texas will join in?
Anyone think Texas will join in?
That would be surprising. Even Napolitano has bigger cojones than those boneheads in Austin.
We can just wait until sky rocketing fuel prices triggers a major recession or worse. The jobs will dry up and the illegals will go back home. No point in heading North with 20%+ unemployment and no construction.
Why go home? They can stay here and continue to live off the states. They don’t have to work. Have a baby, stay forever.
Napolitano is a great governor, I live in Phoenix I think she does a good job with what she has. I also think it was a great move to follow NM governor on the emergency issue. Its not so much the illegal crossings that bother Arizonans as it is the destruction their actions cause, such as car theft and vandalism, and in some parts of Phoenix the hispanic population is so condensed if your white you better stay out of there. The hostility immigrants have toward Americans is shocking. I believe this hostility is what inspires them to come here, and then deface their communities.
All in all, without something happening America’s southern states are just turning into one big extension of Mexico, and bringing their crime rates, corruption, and drug scandals with them. Texas won’t do anything I bet. As the article stated, Republicans turn their noses up at the precedential moves that these two southern governors have made. Perhaps some feel that the issue is one that states should handle, since not all states border Mexico, but what people don’t realize is that immigrants from many countries not just mexico are coming up from that border, perhaps even terrorists, and moving all over the US not just residing in these southern states. What a hypocrit Bush is, sending us to war in Iraq with the pretense of saving us from terror, and leaving one of the largest borders we have in the world into our country virtually untouched.
As a sidenote, Governor Napolitano makes about 95,000 a year- extremely low for a governor, particularly a governor for a state like Arizona. She basically works for peanuts and doesn’t feel the need to increase her salary to a 200,000 figure like so many other politicians. What a great woman.
These moves in Arizona and New Mexico seem to be bogus publicity stunts. California and Texas (of which I am a resident) are having to deal with REAL immigration issues. More than a few thousand Mexicans coming through the desert every year. Its a complex issue, and declaring a “State of Emergency” does nothing to solve the problem. Even hiring more border patrol is futile.
Perhaps Napolitano should have thought of this when she approved in state tuition rates for illegal immigrants.
Will she now allow local and state cops to enforce immigration law, which she vetoed?