Arizona will vote on a bill to pay law enforcement authorities $2,500 for every illegal immigrant they help remove from the United States.
“This is a critical mission that Arizona voters overwhelmingly support, and we want to reward the efforts of our hardworking officers,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican State Senator Jake Hoffman, said in a statement obtained by Reuters.
The bill seeks to establish a state deportation fund which “may be used to provide grants to law enforcement agencies in this state for compensating law enforcement officers” for their “direct involvement in apprehending an illegal alien.”
Compensation is to be “provided on confirmation from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agency that the illegal alien was deported.” The $2,500 payment is to be divided among officers who were involved in the illegal immigrant’s apprehension.
Democrat Senator Lauren Kuby claimed the bill is “Wild West with a twist, it’s a racist bill.”
Hoffman argued that the bill is aimed at restoring fairness to the American people.
“There are hundreds of millions of dollars every year being sent to foreign nations by criminal illegal aliens and criminal enterprises, like drug traffickers, sex traffickers and human traffickers,” he said. He added that “hundreds of millions of dollars are being sent out of our economy to the economy of foreign nations by those who are in this country illegally, who have broken our laws and are now exploiting the benefits of this great economy, the benefits of this great nation, to prop up failing foreign governments.”
A spokesman for Governor Katie Hobbs (D) said of the bill: “Arizonans want border security. They don’t want to turn hard-working law enforcement officers into bounty hunters.”
