Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 8:48 am | Updated: 10:45 am, Tue Jan 21, 2014.
By Curt Prendergast
Nogales International

Attorney General Tom Horne made a campaign stop at the Southern Arizona Republican Club’s monthly meeting in Sonoita last Thursday, vowing to fight for states’ rights and enforce border security and immigration laws.

Horne’s comments were met with applause from the three-dozen people who gathered at the Sonoita Fire Station, with attendees asking Horne about how he plans to fight federal regulations on voter fraud, environmental protection, and other issues.

Despite rumors that he planned to run for governor in the November election, Horne is running for re-election to the state’s highest law enforcement position, after being elected to a four-year term in 2010. He will face Mark Brnovich, former director of the Arizona Department of Gaming, in the Republican primary. If he wins the primary, he will face Democrat Felecia Rotellini, former state banking superintendent, who he defeated in 2010.

With regard to border security, Horne said he completed the promise he made during his 2010 campaign to enforce the border by joining a lawsuit to defend SB 1070, which required local law enforcement to run immigration checks when officers stopped people they had a reasonable suspicion were in the country illegally.

“Not only did I join the lawsuit to defend Senate Bill 1070, but I got to live out a fantasy of mine for a number of years, which is to file a counter-claim and sue the federal government for its negligence at the border,” he said.

His lawsuit was based on Congress’ order to establish operational control over the border and the executive branch’s failure to do so, he said.

Horne cited the Yuma Sector as an example of establishing operational control, where the border fence built in 2006 and the increased border security personnel in the area reduced illegal immigration by 96 percent, he said.

“But in the Tucson Sector, as you guys know, they haven’t done that,” he said.

A lack of operational control at the border is also “a problem of organized crime,” he said, adding the number of people with serious criminal records who were stopped while crossing the border has doubled in the past five years.

“If Obama would do in the Tucson Sector what President Bush did in the Yuma Sector we could have operational control over this border,” he said. “He hasn’t done it and I’ve sued him for it.”

The 2010 beheading of a man in Chandler is a sign of cartel violence crossing the border, he said. “They no longer limit themselves to drug trafficking. Now, they engage in all kinds of organized crime,” he said, adding his office successfully dismantled 14 drug trafficking organizations.

“It’s also a problem of national security,” he said. More than 800 people from Middle East countries were stopped at the border, which when using the “rule of thumb that Border Patrol uses” means about 2,400 people from those countries have crossed the border undetected.

“So if you’re a terrorist in the Middle East and you want to do harm here, the place you go to get in is our border,” he said.

With regard to illegal immigration, Horne has been incorrectly portrayed as “anti-immigration,” he said.

“We’re not anti-immigration. We’re anti-illegality,” he said, noting he is a naturalized citizen from Canada and his parents were Polish immigrants to Canada.

Regulation

“My belief is that we should fight irrational federal regulation wherever we find it,” Horne said.

With regard to business, Horne promised to “create a legal atmosphere that is conducive to business growth.”

“I believe if business succeeds, everything else we care about succeeds,” he said, adding he would prosecute law violators, but “wouldn’t target businesses to make a reputation for myself.”

In response to a question from Sonoita resident Matt Parilli about intervention by the U.S. Department of Justice into state election laws, Horne said he successfully fought regulations that required federal pre-clearance for any changes to election laws.

Earlier in the meeting, Horne discussed his efforts to support Proposition 200, a 2004 ballot measure that required Arizona voters to provide proof of citizenship, in the face of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June prohibiting the state from requiring such proof on federal election forms.

The justices, however, left room for further argument and Horne plans to pursue the issue, he said.

“When we do win that case, we will know that only Arizona citizens and not illegal aliens are voting in our elections,” he said.

Kathy O’Brien questioned Horne about what she perceives as a flood of lawsuits since President Obama took office.

“I think I’m suing more than anybody, actually,” Horne responded. Earlier in the meeting, he told the audience that he wanted to send the message to prosecutors in his office and to state residents that “we are hungry to go to court and fight for the people of Arizona.”

In response to a question about Arizona’s efforts to fight tight environmental regulations, Horne said he is fighting the expansion of protected areas for the jaguar and the gray wolf.

In addition, he pointed to federal mismanagement of national forests, saying “they’re all going to burn” because the federal government over-regulated the paper and wood industries.

“They were thinning out the forests so we didn’t have such bad fires. Now, we have fires that are so horrendous that they’re going to cook all the spotted owls,” he said.

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