On Tuesday, the Speaker of the House Andy Tobin issued a statement saying he was “deeply disturbed when he learned that the Obama administration transferred hundreds of immigrants, including many women and children who were in the country illegally, from Texas to Arizona without even the basic necessities to cope during Arizona’s hottest time of year.”
The statement, issued through the Arizona Legislature during a heated primary campaign cycle, was “strongly” supportive of Governor Brewer’s demand for answers as outlined in her letter to President Barack Obama dated June 2, 2014.
Brewer had sent a letter to the president after she and other official sonly learned through recent media reports, that the Department of Homeland Security transported hundreds of immigrants in the country illegally, including many women with children as well as unaccompanied juveniles, from Texas to Arizona and abandoned them at Arizona bus stations without even bottles of water.
Tobin says in his statement that the administration’s “action demonstrates the administration’s unwillingness to work with Arizona as well as its disregard for the well-being of these individuals. Not only did DHS fail to consider the extreme heat in Arizona, but by not bringing them to a proper facility, it made these individuals open targets for human traffickers and organized criminals.”
While Tobin is jumping on the Governor’s ICE bandwagon now, it was the Governor who jumped on the Legislature’s border security bandwagon during the last gubernatorial election cycle.
Tobin’s challenger in the Republican Primary for CD1, state representative Adam Kwasman came out almost immediately after the media first reported the surge. He told constituents that he was the decision to abandon migrants at bus stations to fend for themselves was “not compassion, it’s the sad reality of amnesty.” Kwasman said that he was the “only CD-1 candidate 100% against amnesty.”
The women and children were left at bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix, some of the migrants had no idea where they had been left.