It’s “wonderful” that lawmakers from both parties are working together on immigration reform, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said today on “Face the Nation.” But for a congressional body 3,000 miles away from her state’s border with Mexico to dictate that more secure borders are not a necessary prerequisite, she continued, is “wrong.”
“We need to secure our border first and then move forward – I feel very, very strongly about that,” the GOP governor said. Thanking Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. – the son of Cuban immigrants – for leading that argument on Capitol Hill, she predicted it’s “going to be a stumbling block trying to get something done” on immigration.
Brewer – who in 2010 signed the Arizona immigration law that sparked nationwide controversy and which was largely struck down last year by the Supreme Court – said she’s witnessed Mexican drug cartels camp along the border and cross at night. The border patrol, she said, “is too far north. They need to be closer to the line.”
“Our fences aren’t complete,” Brewer continued. “People are living down there in fear of their lives, and fear of the safety of their families. And we are recipients of all the crime that is taking place-the extortion, the human trafficking, the prostitution, the cost in jails. It’s a bad problem.”