This week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago touched on everything from reproductive rights, the sanctity of democracy, and especially border and immigration.
Several speakers at the DNC’s third night focused on immigration policy, migration and people who live along the border.
Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff Javier Salazar said his office responds to desperate calls.
“The traffickers, they pack migrants into 18-wheelers like cattle, 50, 100 at a time. Then they seal the doors. That’s when the 911 calls come. We hear them, desperate, terrified, gasping for air,” he told the crowd on Wednesday. "When Donald Trump comes down to Texas, and stands next to officers in uniforms just like mine, he's not there to help us, don't think that, not for a second."
Salazar and other speakers, like Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of Texas, tore into former President Trump and other Republicans who rejected a border security package from earlier this year.
“When it comes to the border, hear me when I say, you know nothing, Donald Trump," Escobar said. "Congress hasn’t passed immigration reform in nearly four decades. The three times they tried, Republicans blocked legislation that would have funded border security and created a more humane immigration system."
The bipartisan measure would have introduced more funding for asylum officers and border personnel, along with harsher restrictions on border migration. But it failed to pass in Congress.
The speeches came before Trump’s visit to the Arizona border this week in Cochise County.
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A Maricopa County Superior Court judge dismissed a residency claim against a Republican legislative candidate on Monday, but challengers say they will appeal the ruling. -
Among the propositions Arizona voters will be deciding on in November, one would create a new $250,000 death benefit payment for the spouse or children of a first responder who is killed in the line of duty. -
Proposition 312 would refund property owners tax money if a city fails to enforce public nuisance laws. Republic columnist Abe Kwok says it sends message without fixing a real homelessness need. -
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes wants the Arizona Supreme Court to pull the plug on ongoing efforts by foes of Proposition 140 to knock it off the ballot. -
The Catholic bishops of Arizona announced the organization's opposition to Proposition 314, a ballot measure that, if approved, would make it a state crime to cross the southern border anywhere other than a port of entry.
