Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, of Citizens for Renewing America, joined a group of Arizona GOP lawmakers to call on Gov. Doug Ducey to use his power to curb illegal immigration from Mexico. /Photo by Gloria Gomez / Arizona Mirror
The ‘invasion’ rhetoric has fueled white supremacist mass murderers in recent years
BY Gloria Gomez | Arizona Mirror
A nativist former top Trump White House official on Wednesday exhorted Gov. Doug Ducey to use Arizona’s National Guard to turn immigrants back at the border.
Ken Cuccinelli, a top United States Citizenship and Immigration Services official in Donald Trump’s administration, said Ducey has the constitutional ability to direct national guardsmen to remove those crossing the southern border. Cuccinelli, who is now a senior fellow on immigration issues at the conservative Center for Renewing America, pointed to the “self defense clause” of the Constitution that prohibits states from engaging in war unless they’re facing immediate danger or active invasion. He said the recent influx of immigrants qualifies as such.
“Thumbprint them, give them food and water and send them back,” he said.
Cuccinelli spoke at the Arizona Capitol Wednesday, flanked by several Republican state legislators.
With the U.S. seeing a record-breaking number of encounters at its southern border that is straining Border Patrol agents and the country’s capacity to process migrants, Republican leaders in Arizona and nationally have insisted there is an “open border” and that the influx of migrants — many seeking asylum — are foreign invaders who need to be repelled.
