Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer Tuesday said she's "thrilled" with the Trump administration's increased push to deport illegal immigrants, as she thinks it'll make a "dramatic change in what we're dealing with in the United States."
"I know in Arizona we're fed up, and we finally have a president who will enforce the law, which all we legal people have to abide by," Brewer said during a Fox News "America's Newsroom" interview. "Unfortunately, with illegal criminal aliens, they get arrested, commit crimes, get arrested, and then they're released out into our communities and go and commit other crimes and they're never going to court."
Further, such criminals "aren't wearing ankle bracelets, and they commit another crime, get arrested, and released again," and sanctuary cities are absorbing them and keeping them, making it more difficult to handle the situation.
She does think large sanctuary cities will push back on President Donald Trump's order removing their federal funding, but she also believes the administration will find a way to make the order stick.
"You know, I support taking the federal dollars away from them," Brewer said. "They need to enforce the law. It could get very ugly. But we have a country, we need to protect it and protect our borders and need to protect the law-abiding citizens of the United States."
On Tuesday, two Department of Homeland Security memos detailed President Trump's plans to deport nearly all illegal immigrants detained in the United States, while hiring more border patrol and immigrant agents and starting construction on the Mexican border wall.
The memos, sent out to heads of key agencies, were signed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, and leaves protections in place for "dreamers," immigrants who entered the country illegally while still children.
However, Brewer said she believes dreamers is an "issue we need to take under consideration," but it's not her top priority.
"If they're behaving and going to school, you know, not getting into trouble, working here, we need to deal with that to make sure that we know who they are and what they are," said Brewer, and in Arizona, people are "concerned about all the criminal aspects of all this illegal immigration."
"We're tired," she said. "We live in fear. A lot of people live in fear in certain neighborhoods because of the drug cartels, the criminals. It's just a revolving door. The data we get is absolutely unbelievable sometimes. We live it and we breathe it."
Brewer does believe it will be difficult in some places in Arizona to put up a wall, but called for a technological means to secure the border, or another method, including boots on the ground or air surveillance.
"With what we're dealing with now, any improvement is going to be a major, major improvement and Donald Trump is going to deliver on that promise," said Brewer. "He understands it. The people of America, they want to be secure. They want our borders. We have all these left wing people out there talking about immigration reform which basically what they're talking about is open borders. They don't want any borders whatsoever."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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