Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne says that the practice of Immigration and Customs Enforcement sending
illegal immigrants from Texas to his state is "very bizarre."
"Apparently, they caught illegal aliens trying to cross the border in Texas and instead of sending them back to Mexico, they sent them to Arizona, which is about as bizarre a thing as I can think of," Horne told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV Monday.
The illegal immigrants from Central America are flown to the Grand Canyon State where they are dropped off at Greyhound bus terminals in Tucson and Phoenix. They are given notices telling them that they have 15 days to report their location to an ICE officer.
Horne says it's doubtful these illegal immigrants will actually report as requested.
"You'd have to be a real sucker to think somebody's going to show up if they know that the consequences are going to be bad. Why should they show up?" Horne said. "The fact that they were trying to cross the border illegally shows that they don't respect the law and so when they're caught, they should be held and sent back to Mexico, not sent to Arizona."
The Arizona attorney general said he's not sure legal action will be taken against the federal government about the matter, "but it certainly is an outrage."
"If you stop illegals in Texas, you should send them back to Mexico, not send them to Arizona. That's bizarre," Horne said.
If the illegal immigrants are from Central America, he said, Border Patrol should fly them back to where they are from, which, he says, they've done before.
"They have flown them back to cities. Not everybody is from northern Mexico, they're from all parts of Mexico, and they've flown them back to Mexico, and they can fly them back to Honduras or wherever they're from," he said.
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