Jan Brewer, the former Republican governor of Arizona, says she has experienced the border crisis firsthand and that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is correct in his assessment of the criminal element crossing in from Mexico.
"I believe that Mr. Trump is kind of telling it like it really, truly is," Brewer said Wednesday on
"CNN Tonight."
"I think that the people of Arizona realize that we picked up the tab for the majority of the violence that comes across our border in regards to the drug cartels, the smugglers, the drop houses. It has been horrendous," Brewer told host Don Lemon.
Lemon asked Brewer about studies that show crime doesn't increase in border states.
Brewer said that people "a thousand miles away" can rely on whatever statistics they want but people who live on the border experience a different reality.
"We know from their data, from the federal data, that they only stop or apprehend one out of four illegal people crossing our border," she said.
Meanwhile, parents of children killed by illegal immigrants told Fox News Channel's
"Hannity" that while Trump's words not have been the most eloquent way to make the point, they, too, agree with him.
"I thank him for bringing this up front and for having this conversation," said Sabine Durden, whose son, Dominic, was killed in a traffic accident by an illegal immigrant.
"I'm not a politician. I don't care left, right, tea party, whatever, it doesn't matter to me. To me, what matters is that my only child, my son, Dominic, is no longer with me," she said.
Dan Golvach, whose son, Spencer, was shot in the head on January 31 by an illegal immigrant, blamed the government.
"It's our government that did this, cherry picking laws, regardless – it could be because you're trying to import votes or you're trying to import cheap labor, he said. "It doesn't matter. The laws are being cherry-picked and there's consequences for that, and my son paid the consequences."
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