Two months later, he saw fit to comment, telling the journalism students, “what happened there was terrible.” He then audaciously said the killings “added a light to some of the fixes that needed to happen.”
Where’s he been? Media and rights groups have been shining a light on this gangsterism for 14 months. Just now taking public notice demonstrates inexcusable political expediency by Ciscomani.
Despite his newfound awareness, his intransigence remained, as he parroted the government’s refrain at the ASU workshop: “We want people who are not here legally and committing crimes to be taken off our streets.”
We do, indeed, but be aware that just 13.2% of the 600,000 people deported in 2025 have violent crime records, as the libertarian Cato Institute reported, and 77% of those in deportation proceedings have no criminal records, as news outlet The Guardian reported.
Ciscomani raised no objections to the government deporting vast numbers of non-criminal immigrants, instead offering mealy-mouthed remarks that people who came here to work should not be ill-treated.
“We, in Arizona, understand,” he said at the high school workshop, inadvertently giving the young journalists a lesson in political prevarication.
Ciscomani said he wants people who came undocumented as children to have “a shot at the American dream.” That’s some weak tea, given that he has not supported the American Dream and Promise Act, H.R. 1589, which would fulfill his expressed desire, and which more than 200 House members support.
He is co-sponsor of the America’s Children Act, H.R. 5528, which would allow those whose immigrant parents have green cards to apply for their own green cards when they turn 21. It’s a good bill that would apply to about 250,000 young immigrants, but would leave 10 times that many “Dreamers” unprotected.