Steve Christy: More immigration gaslighting by local officials

As we embark on the adventure that will be 2025, I am optimistic about the year ahead and heartened by the incoming federal administration, in sharp contrast to my colleagues who penned an opinion piece published last month.

In their 12/15/2024 column, Board Chair Adelita Grijalva, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, County Attorney Laura Conover, and Sheriff Chris Nanos took the popular term “gaslighting” to new heights. It refers simply to telling you not to believe what you are seeing with your own eyes. Clearly, the rest of us have been gaslit for the past five years by the progressive media, Pima County Administration; Casas Alitas personnel, all the City and County Democratic elected leaders, Catholic Community Services and others involved in the disastrous open-border policy, with apparent pure fabrications.

No doubt, you remember hearing that the hundreds of thousands of non-citizens transiting Pima County’s Welcoming Centers, at a taxpayer cost of more than $130M, “were just passing through to their final destinations.” How about that the legally processed asylum seekers stay at Casa Alitas and other shelters for “only 24-72 hours before leaving to join their sponsors” elsewhere in our country? And how many times were we told that Pima County residents should be grateful that there have been “no street releases” in our community?

Just recently, the County has quietly admitted that a percentage (perhaps 1% or 6,000) of the non-citizens entering our region have stayed and are living here after all. Referring to the arm flexing authors’ analysis, we read about possible “mass deportations and roundups” that are causing “deep concerns expressed throughout our community.” They go on to describe that “here in our community” children, students, employers and law enforcement “worry” that such talk will create “a negative impact” upon “our beautiful community”.

If folks, as we were told, are only here for a short stay before leaving to go elsewhere, then where and what is the problem? If people who live in our “community” are residing in Pima County legally, why would there be such “fear” and “worry” about immigration enforcement?

The authors have placed themselves atop a double-edged sword of deceit: Either their (and other’s) statements about non-citizens just passing through Pima County has been a pack of lies or there is really no “fear” in our “community” and the four authors are merely melodramatically constructing a deceptive false narrative to accommodate some sort of strawman pre-emptive posturing.

Either way, it exhibits gaslighting at its finest.

Sheriff Nanos, in his customary colorful way, states that, “we are neither the abortion police, nor are we deportation police.” The Sheriff has been never been directed, much less even asked, to be either. Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar joins in and states that, “… crime in the City is not driven by our immigrant population …” Is this the perhaps 1% or 6,000 non-citizens that we hear about having “deep concerns throughout our community” regarding mass deportations and “roundups”?

We all know that the asylum-seeking process is a total farce. Say just the right words at the right times to the right people and you get a pass to enter our country and to see an immigration judge in say, six, seven, ten or more years. I wonder if their collective tune would change if the incoming federal administration offered say, $130M to the County and City to assist in facilitating the reverse migration of those who have entered and are living here illegally.

The Democratic leadership can easily bob and weave and otherwise deflect the truth about non-citizens entering our country through Pima County because they all know they can get away with it safely here in remote, deep-blue Pima County. But the reality is they are on the wrong side of history and the national mood now does not accept such irresponsibility and the progressive leadership will hear from concerned citizens, and ultimately the voters.

The authors proclaimed they would not be “immigration enforcers”. The truth of the matter is that for the past five years, they have been illegal immigration enablers.