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McCain criticizes Goldwater proposal

Matthew Benson
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 28, 2006 12:00 AM

Arizona Sen. John McCain kept the heat on Don Goldwater on Tuesday, saying the Republican candidate for governor is advocating an inhumane immigration policy.

The statement from McCain, himself a leading GOP voice in the illegal-immigration debate, followed an apology from a Spanish-language news service that acknowledged it mischaracterized Goldwater's stance late last week. The news service had said he supported sending undocumented immigrants to "concentration camps."

The story from EFE News Service and its nod to the Holocaust set off a political maelstrom, drawing stinging rebukes against Goldwater from fellow Arizona Republicans McCain and Reps. Jim Kolbe, Trent Franks and Jeff Flake. By Sunday, EFE News Service backed off its original story and conceded that its reporter had never contacted the Goldwater campaign.

But McCain remains skeptical of Goldwater's immigration plan.

"It is critically important that we improve the security of our borders and that we treat people humanely in the process, which I don't believe Mr. Goldwater's proposal, however he characterizes it, does," McCain said in a statement.

Goldwater, the nephew of former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, advocates detaining illegal border-crossers in tent-style jails and using them to help build a wall along the state's border with Mexico. The labor would be voluntary, he said, and modeled after work programs and tent-city jails run by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

"This is not an idea that's new," Goldwater said Tuesday. "All we're doing is taking a page out of Sheriff Arpaio's book."

Goldwater is among four candidates seeking the GOP nomination and the right to challenge Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano in the November election. Goldwater has made border policy the centerpiece of his campaign, regularly decrying lax enforcement by the federal government and calling for the manning of National Guard troops and the construction of a wall at the southern border.

In April, Goldwater penned a letter that appeared in The Arizona Republic in which he was critical of the path of immigration reform in Washington, D.C. He asked voters to "send a strong message to President Bush, McCain and Congressmen Jeff Flake and Rick Renzi that we are not going to accept their selling (out) of America."

Days later, Goldwater issued a clarification in which he took back the "selling out" remark, especially with reference to Renzi.

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