Babeu: `Get real' about enforcing immigration laws

by KTAR.com
October 4th, 2011 @ 7:43am
Video @ link

PHOENIX -- The United States must "get real" about enforcing immigration laws, according to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, an outspoken critic of the way Mexican border issues are being handled.

"The most important aspect and sequence is the enforcement of the law. We're still not enforcing the law, we have to get real about prosecuting all these people," Babeu told Eric Bolling on FOX Business "Follow the Money" Monday night.

Babeu said he is not impressed with the suggestion of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, that U.S. troops should be sent across the border into Mexico to help fight the violent Mexican cartels. The sheriff noted Perry has defended in-state college tuition for the children of illegal immigrants.

While sending U.S. troops into Mexico is "a very real option," coming from him (Perry), it sounds more and looks more like a Hail Mary pass," Babeu said. He's against a border fence and then there's the magnet -- the draw of reward for in-state tuition for illegals -- when our own citizens from other states can't get that benefit... and then he calls us heartless, those of us who want to enforce the law."

Michelle Bachmann, another GOP presidential hopeful, is right in supporting a fence or physical barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, Babeu said, but added, "We don't need every inch of the border with a fence. We don't need 2,000 miles of border with a fence. We're not building the great wall of Mexico. We need 700 miles that has already been pre-determined because of the historic smuggling paths that are used or built-up urban areas south of the border, or north of the border, to deny immediate assimulation into America. Wherever we have built a double-barrier fence, it works."

Violence from the Mexican drug cartels -- responsible for 42,000 murders in their country -- has arrived in the United States, Babeu said.

"I see it in my county. There's shooting, there's cartels fighting bandits, trying to steal their drugs. There's kidnappings, there's car jackings, there's high-speed pursuits. We have to stop and defeat the enemy here which is the Mexican drug cartels."

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