by Jan Brewer
President Sarkozy is exactly right. In the end, the illegal immigration debate isn’t about the identity of those coming to America; it’s about preserving the identity of America itself.
The truth is that too many who don’t want to secure our borders don’t see America as anything special or worth fighting for. People talk a lot about something called “American exceptionalism” these days. It’s a pretty misunderstood concept. It doesn’t mean that, as Americans, we think we’re better than the rest of the world. It means that we understand, care about, and cultivate the set of values that have made our nation exceptional—values like freedom, free enterprise, and religious tolerance. Those who don’t believe in protecting America’s borders generally don’t believe that America is exceptional either. Quite the contrary; they see it as a place that needs to be radically changed—or “fundamentally transformed,” in Barack Obama’s words. They don’t care about our identity—in fact, they see a strong, cohesive American identity as something people cling to out of bigotry and fear. They see being proud to be an American as an expression not of pride but of prejudice. They find it kind of embarrassing.
How else do you explain the Obama administration apologizing to China for something like SB 1070? And yet that’s exactly what happened. A few weeks after I signed the law, Michael Posner, the assistant secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the State Department, held a briefing regarding a U.S.-China human rights dialogue held that week. One of the members of the press asked whether SB 1070 had come up. Posner answered in the affirmative. Actually, he did more than that. “We brought it up early and often,” he said. “It was mentioned in the first session and as a troubling trend in our society, and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination.”
Posner’s comments are very indicative of this elite liberal mentality. China is a routine human rights violator, torturing dissidents, crushing its own population. How little regard for America could Posner have to feel that he must actually apologize to a country like China for the law we passed in Arizona?
Later the Obama State Department included Arizona in its report to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is without a doubt the very worst of the UN bodies. It is a collection of thugs and dictators from such great human-rights-respecting nations as Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and China, whose main function is to pass hypocritical and obscene resolutions against Israel. What could lead the leaders of a great nation to give such people the power to pass judgment on the state of Arizona? How profoundly self-loathing can you get? And what is the real human rights violation? A law that enforces federal law while prohibiting racial profiling? Or allowing men, women, and children to be systematically tortured and abused by vicious thugs and gangsters?
We are a country of immigrants because we are the greatest values magnet in the history of mankind. To give away that power is a mistake of monumental proportions. We need more assimilation to American values, not less.
On July 28, 2010, just one day before SB 1070 was scheduled to go into effect, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled to prevent from being implemented the provisions of the law that allowed police to check immigration status and that criminalized the failure of immigrants to carry proof of legal status. Like the lawsuit itself, Judge Bolton’s ruling piled implausibility on top of implausibility to construct its case. She worried that legal immigrants from visa-waiver countries such as Sweden and Singapore might suffer under the law, even though the proof of their legal status is right there on their passports. She worried that lawful applicants for asylum who hadn’t received their paperwork would be “harassed.” And she laughably concluded that the DHS clearinghouse that verifies immigrants’ legal status would be overwhelmed with inquiries. Really?
As someone who has lived in Arizona for forty years, I can assure Judge Bolton that the last thing our police are interested in doing is harassing innocent Swedes and Singaporeans. The last thing they want to do is “harass” anyone. Moreover, our problem is not asylum seekers who don’t yet have their paperwork engaging in high-speed shoot-outs on our freeways or torturing people in drop houses. Our problems dwell in the real world.
But for many of our old friends in the unions and the liberal activist groups, I think Judge Bolton’s ruling was more of a letdown than a victory. They had buses gassed up in California ready to ship in hundreds of protesters when the law was implemented. Liberal immigration groups had called for yet another “national day of action.” A protest march was planned across the Brooklyn Bridge, among other acts of outrage, when the law actually went into effect. When Judge Bolton blocked its implementation, you could practically feel the fund-raising and recruiting efforts drying up.
It was then that it dawned on me: If the Obama administration and the unions and the civil rights groups didn’t have SB 1070 to rail against, they would have had to make it up. The law fit their purposes to a T. They could rally their base by calling us names and get everyone excited before the election. And they could generate lots of noise to mask the fact that they weren’t doing one constructive thing to solve our immigration crisis.
There’s just one thing standing in the way of the open-border left: the people. The people of Arizona and America at large don’t agree with its agenda. They don’t buy the demonization of opponents and can see through their rhetorical smokescreen. After my serious rivals dropped out of the Republican primary, I faced a tough fight against Terry Goddard for the right to remain governor in 2010. My critics have accused me of “riding” the popularity of SB 1070 to reelection. And while it’s true that SB 1070 has remained very popular despite what may be the greatest campaign of political and media distortion in our history, the law wasn’t the key to my eventual victory; it was the issue the law represents that was the key.
Washington is lying to America when it comes to the border, and Americans know it. What we want—what the voters of Arizona want—is someone who will stand up to the bullies of the left and honestly represent the people. Whether it’s the fight against Obamacare or the fight to secure the border, fewer and fewer people are buying the “Washington knows best” routine. I took on this fight. It was bruising and ugly. It’s not one I ever, ever want to repeat. But nineteen months later, I’m still smiling. Why? Because (to quote the president) I won. Yes, I won the election, but I also won an even greater prize. My fellow Arizonans and the people of this great and good country still stand with me.
Conclusion
On January 8, 2011, I was with my longtime friend and communications director Paul Senseman, my chief of staff, Eileen Klein, and my speechwriter, Mark Genrich, in the House chamber at the Arizona Capitol. Other staff members, like Kim Sabow, Brian McNeil, Joe Kanefield, and Colin Shipley, were with me. We were doing our final walk-through for my State of the State address, scheduled for just two days later. There was a lot of anticipation for the new year. My inaugural had been five days before, and I was preparing to roll out a big agenda in my upcoming speech.
We had paused in the members’ lounge following our survey of the chamber when phones began to ring and BlackBerrys beeped. I was reviewing my speech. When I looked up, I saw my staff huddled together. They looked shocked. Paul called me over and said they had some very bad news. He had just received a call from Bobby Halliday, my director of the Department of Public Safety. There had been a shooting in Tucson. Several people had been shot, including a judge and Gabby Giffords.
I don’t remember how long I stood there trying to process what I had just heard. I consider Gabby a friend. She is one of the most genuine, most sincere people I have ever known. We had worked together when I was secretary of state and she was in the State Senate. Gabby represented part of our southern border in the Eighth Congressional District. She knew, as I did, the people who live and work down there, people who are suffering because of the federal government’s negligence. We stood on different sides of th
e political aisle and we did not agree on SB 1070, but we had stood side by side in calling on Washington to do its job to secure our border.
My first thought was, What can we do? I went into action. Get me the mayor of Tucson on the phone. I need to speak with my director of DPS. We need to verify the information we’ve received.
My second thought was that this must be the work of a madman. I flashed back to fourteen years earlier, when a colleague on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors was shot in the hallway while exiting the auditorium where we had just had a board meeting. I remembered hearing the loud crack and smelling the odor of the fired weapon as it filled the auditorium. I remembered screaming as I ducked under a table for safety and then tried to figure our where the rest of my colleagues were and whether they were safe. When it was over, the board member survived, thank goodness. The shooter, a homeless man, was convicted of attempted first-degree murder. It rattled everyone and forced us to beef up security in government buildings.
I stayed in the House chamber as we contacted federal, state, and local officials and watched the coverage from Tucson. The news was reporting that Gabby was dead, although nothing official had been reported to me.
The reports revealed that it had been a sunny Saturday at a supermarket. Gabby was doing her duty as a public servant, meeting with the citizens she represented. It was something we all did in Arizona. We called them supermarket Saturdays. We would go out and spend the day talking to our constituents. If you couldn’t find a supermarket, you went to a park or even a parking lot. But we had always been proud of the fact that we kept in close touch with the people we represented. And we had never been afraid. Until now.
The news came in a rush. At some point, after what felt like an hour but could have been less, we got word that Gabby wasn’t dead but was gravely wounded and being taken to University Medical Center in Tucson. Still, the news was almost unfathomably grim. U.S. District Judge John Roll had also been shot. Six people were confirmed dead, including a nine-year-old girl. Thirteen people had been wounded.
We’re a small political community in Arizona. We all knew Gabby or members of her staff. We all had friends in Tucson. Mayor Bob Walkup had served on my transition team. I had relatives in Tucson, and my son Michael had graduated from the University of Arizona. As the news got worse and worse, our sense of helplessness grew deeper and deeper. Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do—as if it were the only thing to do—Paul, Eileen, Mark, the other staffers, and I silently formed a circle right there in the members’ lounge of the House chamber. We took each other’s hands, and we prayed. We prayed for the victims. We prayed for the Arizonans who were responding to the tragedy. We prayed for our state and for our country. We prayed that the peace that had been robbed from us that morning would not be long in returning.
I spent the next several hours in the House chamber. I received phone calls and security briefings from Secretary Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Public Safety director Halliday. A couple of hours into the tragedy, Eileen told me the president was on the telephone. I went into the House Speaker’s conference room to take the call. President Obama was very gracious. He had stepped out of the Situation Room in the White House to update me. He shared with me the information he had from the FBI. It was from the president that I first learned that Judge Roll was dead. It was a heartbreaking but heartening call. It was the first time I had spoken to the president in which there was no party, no politics, no agenda. We were just two human beings, two Americans, brought together by a hideous, unnecessary, incomprehensible tragedy. He pledged to do everything he could to bring the shooter to justice. I thanked him sincerely for his call and hung up.
I knew that the president would be making a televised statement, and out of respect I chose to wait until he was finished before I addressed the press. Many people earlier that day had eagerly jumped to be on the air without really having any information. I knew, however, that Arizonans would be looking to me for comfort and strength.
We watched the president give his remarks from the White House, then I went outside and met with the press. I could barely keep it together. I asked the people of Arizona and the people of America to keep the victims and their families in their prayers. After I had made my brief statement, the second question I received from the assembled reporters was about how I felt the shooting reflected on the state of Arizona. I answered honestly: It certainly didn’t reflect favorably on our state. But our people are overwhelmingly good and decent, I said. Tragedies happen, and what we needed to do was to make sure the perpetrators were held accountable.
We were less than forty-eight hours away from the historic opening of the fiftieth session of the Arizona legislature. I had planned to use my State of the State address to announce an ambitious new agenda to create jobs, improve education, and reform taxes. But none of that seemed appropriate now. So I spent the next day, a Sunday, rewriting my remarks with my staff. There would be a time for policy; now was the time for grieving and trying to begin to heal.
In the end my address was short—less than ten minutes. I called for prayers and comfort for the victims and their families. I led the chamber in a moment of silence. And after we had humbled ourselves to seek God’s guidance and his strength, I felt the need to also be defiant. When we opened our eyes and lifted our heads from our moment of silent prayer, I looked at the legislators, the dignitaries, the judges, and the other constitutional officers who faced me in the chamber and I thought of all the people who now looked to us to ensure that justice would be served.
I paraphrased Isaiah: “I believe Arizona will rise on wings like eagles,” I said. “We will run and not get weary. We will walk and not grow weak.”
My voice rose. “Arizona is in pain,” I concluded. “Yes, our grief is profound. We are yet in the first hours of our sorrow. But we have not been brought down.”
I paused. “We will never be brought down.” The chamber rose in thunderous applause.
I had meant every word.
The sun had yet to set on Arizona on the day of Gabby’s shooting when the hate talk began again. This time it came from a disappointing source: Democratic Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik. In an interview with the Tucson NBC affiliate that was aired live on MSNBC just hours after the shooting, Sheriff Dupnik proceeded to light a flame that would burn out of control for the next few weeks.
“I want to tell you right now that people like myself are very, very angry at what’s going on in our country, and I think that it’s time that we take a look at what kind of hatred that we inflame by all the crap that goes on,” he said. He clearly meant to imply, without a shred of evidence, that the shootings had been politically motivated.
“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” Dupnik elaborated at a news conference later that evening. “And unfortunately, Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
At seventy-three, Sheriff Dupnik had served seven terms. He was a well-known political liberal who had already declared that he would not enforce SB 1070 because it was a “racist” law. He was entitled to state his views about SB 1070, but these comments were beyond the pale. The grief we felt was raw. We were hurting for people and families we knew and cared about. And here this craven opportunist was exploiting our shared tragedy to score a cheap political point. I couldn’t believe it. And of course, Dupnik’s comments from the scene in Tucson were all that the liberal mainstream media needed to unleash their residual bias against Arizona.
That night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann praised Sheriff Dupnik’s words and brazenly linked the shooting to a year-old Sarah Palin Web site that used crosshairs to identify Gabby’s district as one of twenty vulnerable Democratic d
istricts in the 2010 elections. Olbermann called for any Republican who wouldn’t acknowledge that Palin’s map was responsible for the Tucson shooting to be expelled from public office. “This morning in Arizona, this age in which this country would accept ‘targeting’ of political opponents and putting bull’s-eyes over their faces and of the dangerous blurring between political rallies and guns shows, ended,” Olbermann said, with his characteristic restraint and brevity. It was unsubstantiated. It was outrageous. And unfortunately, it was merely a taste of things to come.
It didn’t seem to matter, when the facts came in, that the shooter was clearly a deeply unbalanced young man with no discernible political beliefs or agenda. The crazed look in his eyes as he stared at the cameras spoke volumes. Yet as the days went by, liberal journalists and politicos repeatedly accused Arizonans, gun owners, the Tea Party, and supporters of SB 1070 of being accomplices to mass murder. Each of them used Sheriff Dupnik’s irresponsible comments as an excuse. The New York Times editorialized:
It is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.
That whirlwind has touched down most forcefully in Arizona . . .
After the furor over SB 1070 had subsided, the mainstream media and liberal politicians were now using a tragic event to wrongly smear Arizona again. After it turned out the facts did not support their argument, they simply turned to an argument for “civility” which was code for conservatives shutting up over Obamacare, immigration, and the Second Amendment, among other issues.