Excerpt
A labor union representing nearly 20,000 border patrol agents and staff Friday disputed comments made by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer that most illegal immigrants coming across the southern border are smuggling drugs.
Brewer initially made the comments earlier this month during a debate of Republican gubernatorial candidates. She repeated them Friday when asked by a reporter for the basis of the claim.
"Well, we all know that the majority of the people that are coming to Arizona and trespassing are now becoming drug mules," Brewer said. "They're coming across our borders in huge numbers. The drug cartels have taken control of the immigration.
"So they are criminals. They're breaking the law when they are trespassing and they're criminals when they pack the marijuana and the drugs on their backs."
When pressed, Brewer explained that many are simply coming to the United States to look for work but "are accosted, and they become subjects of the drug cartels."
T.J. Bonner of the National Border Patrol Council told CNN that Brewer's claims were "clearly not the case." Bonner said that some undocumented immigrants caught by border patrol agents have drugs on them, and that they sometimes blame pressure from the drug cartels.
But, he said, those claims have little credibility because drug smugglers are typically transporting much larger quantities of drugs. And besides, he said, if what Brewer said were true, there would be many more prosecutions for drug smuggling.
Xenophobic = "Suffering from xenophobia; having abnormal fear or hatred of the strange or foreign"
For the GOP: "Strange or foreign" = ANYONE who disagrees with their world-view, especially if "they" are non-white, do NOT kowtow to Big Business, or (GASP!, horror) like Obama.
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