Arizona state Rep. Jay Lawrence, according to the Arizona Mirror, told people at a political event on January 16 that refugees were a problem. But not a “problem” in the way one might consider the plight of human beings needing a home because of famine or war or oppression or violence, no, more of a problem because state Rep. Lawrence is a bigot.
Explaining his enlightened position to Arizona tea party folks, Lawrence told the audience that refugees take resources out of the community and “make for lower wages for us,” while making emergency rooms more expensive (and schools too). It’s as rambling as it sounds. But, Lawrence finished strong saying he would fight any relocation of refugees into Arizona: “Call me a bigot, whatever you want, I just think it’s best for the state of Arizona.”
You, Mr. Lawrence, are a bigot.
According to the AZ Mirror, Mr. Lawrence’s wife, Judy, was at this tea party discussion and at one point melded refugees and immigrants together to show how robust her and her husband’s bigotry really is, saying that “I think it’s irresponsible to not have some sort of limit, because we are close. We are a border state, and we have already absorbed so many illegals, it’s changed the dynamics of this state immeasurably, and I think we need to be very careful how we handle that.”
State Rep. Jay Lawrence is a big Second Amendment guy and to be clear, his “bigotry” extends past refugees, to people of color living in America already—you know, citizens. This past September, Lawrence explained that the important thing to do to control gun violence was to target people of color because they have too many firearms. So, let’s call Jay Lawrence a racist and a bigot.