Katie Hobbs All In on Protecting AZ Citize…Just Kidding

It appears Arizona’s mewling milquetoast governor, Katie Hobbs, whose gubernatorial campaign was basically built on Biden’s basement-dwelling engagement strategy, is keeping those winning POTATUS formulas close and working them like nobody’s business.

As you probably have heard, the state of AZ shares an international border with the country of Mexico. Now, I’m no geography major – I only play one here at HotAir – but I can read a map, and thought I’d just lay that fact out there in case Ms. Hobbs Googles herself and finds this post. She seems to have forgotten what’s directly to her south as far as neighbors go.

MEXICO

In keeping with her admiration for all things POTATUS, Gov Hopeless Hobbs has also adopted his non-interventionist style when it comes to said international border and, oddly enough, those who cross it illegally.

For the record, AZ had a banner year for uninvited visitors in 2023.

More than 775,000 people illegally crossed the border into Arizona in fiscal 2023, according to official U.S. Customs and Border Protection data and preliminary gotaway data.

This includes 576,912 apprehensions officially reported by CBP and at least 198,110 gotaways reported by Border Patrol agents alone, according to the preliminary data The Center Square obtained from a Border Patrol agent.

Arizona’s 378 miles of shared border with Mexico are divided into two CBP sectors: Tucson and Yuma. Tucson Sector’s 262-border miles extend from the Yuma County line to the Arizona-New Mexico state line. Yuma Sector’s nearly 182,000 square miles of primarily desert terrain extends from Imperial Sand Dunes in California to the Yuma-Pima County line.

In this very young new year, things are surely looking up as far as numbers go, thanks to Texas Gov Greg Abbott’s less-than-welcoming posture in the state next door, with a little help from the Mexican government. 

No worries, though. It seems illegals are adept at shifting plans and landing zones at the last minute. It doesn’t matter where they cross, just that they do.

If TX won’t have them, well, then, as the old song says, it looks like “Arizona wants me.”

A large majority of illegal crossings at the southern border are now happening in Arizona and California, shifting away from Texas counties. 

Sources with U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Fox News that over the last week of January, Border Patrol apprehended 32,809 illegal immigrants. 

Per CBP sources, 23,576 of them – 71.8% – were in Arizona and California. Notably, the numbers in Texas’ Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, have fallen off a cliff. In December, the sector saw days of 3,000-4,000 illegal crossings per day. Over the last week, it has averaged around just 200. 

Oddly enough, all those bodies heading her way seems to be totally cool with Katie Hobbs. She’s not “anti-immigrant,” you understand – only Republicans are. So when the state legislature passed a bill this week giving AZ law enforcement more authority to handle illegals and upping penalties on actual border jumpers themselves?

She vetoed it.

I mean, she knows Arizonans are kind of bent out of shape about the border…

Hobbs has the intellectual acumen of a 9-year-old. And the voice to go along with it. 🍌 pic.twitter.com/5fs6DuDpEw

— Kim “filterless” Wexler MA JD (@KimWexlerMAJD) March 5, 2024

“…I know there’s frustration about the federal government’s failure to secure our border, but this bill is not the solution.”

…but, gosh darn this beastly, racist GOP bill just isn’t the thing to help any of it out, you know? (And God BLESS you if you can stand to listen to that hideously whiny voice making excuses.) 

How will this bill “hurt businesses”?

Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona vetoed a bill on Monday that would have authorized the state police to arrest undocumented immigrants.

It was the first veto of the year from Ms. Hobbs, a Democrat who shot down a record number of bills passed by Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2023 dealing with abortion, elections, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and other hot-button issues.

Her veto highlights the election-year tensions over border security as border states and major cities grapple with a record number of migrants crossing the southern border. Ms. Hobbs has expressed frustration with the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis, but said the Republican-backed measure was anti-immigrant and most likely unconstitutional.

Honestly, though…I’m a little puzzled on the whole racist and anti-immigrant accusation angle about the bill. It really seems kind of subdued in what’s called for, considering the circumstances on the ground. None of this is earthshaking or radical.

I think they do protest too much…

…A Latino advocacy group, Living United for Change in Arizona, called the measure one of the most “extreme and racist anti-immigrant bills” in years. The group said that it echoed Arizona’s “show me your papers” law, a 2010 measure that required state law enforcement to investigate the immigration status of people they suspected of being undocumented.

Alejandra Gomez, the group’s executive director, praised Ms. Hobbs for killing the bill, saying it represented a rejection of “racism, hate and just plain bad policy.”

What about any of the language in the piece of legislation (summary here) should fuel that kind of outrage? Be damned if I can find it.

Purpose

Makes it unlawful for a person who is an alien (unlawful immigrant) to enter Arizona from a foreign nation at any location other than a lawful port of entry. Outlines penalties for violations of illegally entering Arizona and provides immunity from civil liability and indemnification for state and local government officials, employees and contractors who enforce this prohibition.

Background

Any unlawful immigrant must be fined and imprisoned for not more than  six months, or for not more than 2 years for a subsequent offense involving: 1) entering or attempting to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers; 2) eluding examination or inspection by immigration officers; or 3) attempting to enter or obtain entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact (8 U.S.C. § 1325). Any unlawful immigrant who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States, regardless of whether the unlawful immigrant enters through a designated port of arrival, and including an unlawful immigrant who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters, may apply for asylum. In order to be granted asylum, the unlawful immigrant must demonstrate that they are a refugee as defined in federal statute, and that race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant (8 U.S.C. § 1158).

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program allows qualified individuals without lawful immigration status to defer removal of the individual from the United States. Deferred action remains in effect for a period of two years, subject to renewal, and provides recipients with employment authorization. On July 16, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a vacatur and a permanent injunction against the continued operation of the program, thereby enjoining the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from granting DACA status for new applicants (U.S. Department of Homeland Security).

It addresses illegal entry (hello), and gives magistrates the option to deport someone here illegally and/or under false asylum claims. It also prevents the feds from “abating the prosecution of an illegal entry offense” based on immigration status, etc. Maybe that’s what they’re mad about?

But it’s all about enforcing the law – laws that were already on the books – and it’s a pretty quick read, too.

For a governor who, as Karen noted in December, had to send the National Guard to the border to help control the situation, you think she’d be all about a few more tools in her belt.

So what gives now?

Or…maybe it’s nothing to do with race at all, huh?

Politicians will not expel likely future voters. Just a matter of incentives.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

Hobbs is closer to being a basement bottom dweller than anyone had any idea.

AZ is going to have a choice to make when this ditzoid comes up for re-election (If, God willing, the AZ GOP has a worthy candidate who can survive the maelstrom of AZ elections), and it’s also one places like Eagle Pass, TX will have as well.

Do voters…CITIZENS…stick with these Democrats? In AZ’s case, it’s not yet an entrenched voting culture. They have their Republican moments. But it sure is in traditionally blue border counties like Maverick County, TX. The results have been the same in both places: they’ve been hung out to dry repeatedly by their duly elected Democratic officials.

Really? I’ll bet they’re “frustrated.”

But THEY VOTED FOR HIM, his clearly stated border policy, along with a STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC TICKET.

Are they SO “frustrated” that votes will change in November?

That will be the tell, won’t it?

It’s all worthless whining if they don’t. https://t.co/sj4C6lyf46 pic.twitter.com/P6DEM2ssMD

— tree hugging s*ster 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) March 5, 2024

What happens next?

Do they stick with who’s stuck them?

Or have they finally had enough of the stick in their eye?

That’s the how-many-illegals-in-your-backyard-is-too-many question.