“As president of the United States, every mile, every yard, every foot, every inch will be covered on that southern border,” Ames Straw Poll winner Michele Bachmann told supporters in South Carolina Tuesday – a state that recently passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation, which will go into effect this December.
Bachmann’s vow to seize control of the U.S.-Mexican border came soon after news that three Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms supervisors involved in the secret, highly controversial “Fast and Furious” program that gave thousands of guns to Mexican gangs and drug cartels were promoted. One of the guns has been linked to the murders of two U.S. Border Control agents.
Bachmann is seeking to capitalize on the “Fast & Furious” scandal, which highlighted the Obama administration’s poor record on border security. In May, the president claimed that the border was secure enough to begin legalization of millions of illegal immigrants, most of whom would presumably vote for Democrats.
Especially in the South, border security will continue to be a hot-button political issue during the 2012 campaign, and Bachmann’s bold comments were intended to nail down the backing of the secure borders crowd before other Republican contenders.
“We acknowledge that Michele Bachman is the first presidential contender of the 2012 race to make border security and illegal immigration a top issue for her campaign,” said William Gheen, head of Americans for Legal Immigration’s Political Action Committee, which endorsed Bachmann when she ran for Congress.
“Now we just need to make sure that she will indeed enforce our existing immigration and border laws instead of supporting Dream or comprehensive amnesties that would undermine any and all enforcement efforts.”
