On June 21, Arizona Representative Bob Thorpe (R-Dist. 6) sent a letter to Arizona’s Congressional Delegation asking them to withhold support for the Senate “Gang of 8” immigration bill. In the letter, sent to U.S. Senators John McCain & Jeff Flake as well as Congressmen Paul Gosar (R-Dist. 4), Matt Salmon (R-Dist. 5), David Schweikert (R-Dist. 6) and Trent Franks (R-Dist. 8) he stated,
“I am writing on behalf of the citizens of the Great and Sovereign State of Arizona to strongly urge you to vote against the one thousand plus page immigration bill currently being considered in the United States Senate.
Not only is this misguided bill bloated in its shear size, but it does not do nearly enough to ensure an end to rampant illegal immigration nor does it secure our border against violent drug cartels, brutal human trafficking syndicates or dangerous foreign agents of terror.
However, it does promote a de-facto amnesty, rewarding tens of millions who have broken our immigration laws, with no concrete guarantees of border security or future managed, limited and lawful immigration practices. Passage of this legislation will be disastrous for both the United States and for all immediately vulnerable border states like Arizona.
In 2006, Congress passed legislation that funded and mandated the construction of some 700 miles of new border fencing. Seven years later, there is scant little construction progress to speak of. While Congress inflicts further harm upon Arizona and the American people by failing to fulfill their obligations to construct and maintain the fence, it is now behaving as if it had never enacted this mandate nor allocated the scarce taxpayer funding with which to complete it.
Our nation’s 1700 mile porous Southern border, most notably that of Arizona, must be fully secured before any form of legal status is extended to any illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S.
I am available and ready to fight for my constituents and my state in order to ensure the security of our border regions and the sovereignty of our nation. Please feel free to contact me if there is anything that I can do to help achieve passage of responsible immigration legislation that fulfills these crucial national priorities.”