Plenty of officials – primarily in Texas and Arizona – have sounded off in recent weeks about the pronounced increase in illegal immigrants from Mexico being housed in makeshift camps and bused to a number of other locations.
One of the most common destinations for the approximately 1,000 individuals currently streaming across our southern border daily is Phoenix, which is situated within the purview of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The lawman, often described as America’s toughest sheriff, has taken a firm stance against illegal immigration in the past. Amid the current inundation his county and other Arizona communities are currently experiencing, he offered a few thoughts.
Some detainees in the southern Arizona town of Nogales, for example, have complained that the food they are being served is making them sick.
“They’re complaining, yeah,” Arpaio said; “but why don’t they compare what’s going on here to the country they came from? That’s why they’re coming here – because of the bad conditions in other countries like Honduras and Guatemala.”
He is also critical of claims that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are following through with demands that illegals report for hearings.
“In our jails,” he explained, “we found that about 2,000 inmates in the past several months are in jail for several state crimes; but they’re here illegally and we found out that over and over again they’re being released to ICE and they keep coming back.”
Arpaio described such experiences as evidence that “either they’re being led out the back door or they’re being deported and they’re still coming across the border.”
National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers Chairman Zack Taylor said the current trend indicates America is “arguably a lawless nation” because of its failure to enforce existing immigration laws and the U.S. Constitution.
“Yes, our leaders are guilty,” he said. “However, we are responsible because it is the American voter that has placed untrustworthy people in positions of power and kept them there when they have clearly demonstrated that they have violated that public trust.”
Don Ray, who heads the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition, offered a comparison that has earned him nationwide attention this week.
“You can’t have an influx of people like that without having an impact,” he stated. “I think we saw that after Katrina. It’s relocation services that are really taking place. In the case of Katrina, most of them were United State citizens or people that were here lawfully; and now you have people that aren’t here lawfully.”
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Informing And Equipping Americans Who Love Freedom
Read More and Comment: You Won’t Believe What Sheriff Joe Has To Say About The Influx Of Illegals Into His State