Donald Trump, Doug Ducey and Joe Arpaio have demagogued the immigration issue for years; they are not serious about solutions and instead prey upon the fears and uncertainties of voters in order to win elections. They have destroyed solutions countless times and instead used fear-based rhetoric to gain power. Trump, Ducey and Arpaio cannot be trusted on the immigration issue.
Today, children and infants are sitting absurdly in courtrooms representing themselves in deportation hearings. Today, in America.
Today, children are sitting in cages in warehouses, weeping for their parents. Scared. Alone. Traumatized. Today, in America.
Today, we are building tents in the middle of a hot and hidden nowhere; tents that will house children and families away from accountability and watchful eyes who could call out human rights abuses or worse. Today, in America.
Anyone who is paying attention and believes that small incremental reforms of ICE are enough in the face of this travesty, is abandoning the American values I served to defend. Values that American troops throughout our history have given their lives to defend. ICE cannot simply be tweaked; in the face of these historic abuses, our entire immigration system including ICE must be re-built top-to-bottom.
When I am governor, I am not going to sit silent and seemingly afraid like Doug Ducey. These kids are being traumatized on his watch; Ducey is as responsible for this suffering as Trump is. When I am governor, I am going to stand up to Trump and say "not in Arizona!” I will tell Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions that in Arizona, we know what these tents and deportation forces lead to: pain. They hurt families, they hurt the economy and they hurt our state. We aren’t going back to those dark days.
We recalled Russell Pearce, disbarred Andrew Thomas, clawed back SB1070, beat Arpaio and are about to defeat Ducey. Their demagoguery worked for a brief moment - much like gasoline on a fire - burning hot and fast for a time and then dying down as if it never burned at all. Arizonans are desperate for real solutions not more rhetoric from Ducey on the immigration issue.
We will build a trusting and dynamic relationship with our largest trading partner and neighbor, Mexico. Imagine a governor who is a bilingual, Latino pitchman traveling across Mexico and Latin America selling the beauty and innovation in Arizona and driving investment and commerce to our state. We will undo decades of Republican damage to Arizona’s image and brand abroad thus creating jobs and trade at home.
We will celebrate and support our Dreamers. These young people represent the best of American values: hard work, sacrifice, and community service. We will make sure the basics of life like a drivers license and in-state college tuition are accessible so they can give back to the state that has raised them and that they call home.
We will fight to keep families together. I am running to support stable families. Instability at home creates instability in the classroom and in our communities. We cannot allow this inhumane and immoral practice of separating families by the Trump administration - a policy that Ducey enables - to continue. I will fight for these kids and families as I would fight for my own family. It’s wrong and it must end.
Finally, we will do all of this as we maintain secure borders and orderly immigration. We don’t have to choose between Ducey and Trump’s immoral policy of separating families and open borders. That is a false choice. We have demonstrated before that we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. We can do so again. In Arizona, we know the pain that the Ducey and Trump plan will produce. We aren’t going backwards. We will build an Arizona that shows the world how immigration and international borders aren’t something to fear but something to embrace.
David Garcia is running for Governor of Arizona. Join us: dg4az.com