Border security tops list of voter concerns in Arizona – the ‘ground zero’ of election denial
They wear giant slippers with soles of carpet.
It’s the standard item for immigrants making an illegal crossing over the US border into Arizona – the crude wrap-around footwear with carpeted soles that don’t show tracks in the desert sand.
And we saw them everywhere – discarded with camouflaged jackets and trousers, worn to blend with the landscape and offer concealment from border patrols.
The special shoes with carpet on the soles to avoid detection
A sighting of dumped ‘cammo’ is the signature evidence of another one that got away.
It doesn’t work every time.
We joined a twilight patrol with a sheriff’s deputy in Cochise County, where Mexico meets Arizona. It was a late shift on the border, hovering on Highway 92 – until the handbrake turn that signified a sighting.
Roadside cameras had picked up movement on a stretch of highway, well-used as a pick-up point. People making illegal crossings are directed here by the cartels they pay for passage.
Those criminal gangs recruit drivers in the United States through social media, often teenagers. They are paid a fee, typically $2,000 a head, to pick up the immigrants and drive them north.
Our deputy’s search took him into the scrub by the roadside, underneath drains and through weeds, until his torch shone on three people, a man and two women dressed in camouflage and carpeted footwear, hiding silently in the darkened undergrowth.
Crisis levels of illicit exports
They were a sad sight – weary, dejected and eagerly clutching the water provided by the border officials who marched them into the rear of their pick-up vehicle.
The smuggling infrastructure that facilitates human traffic across the Mexican border is exploited to transport drugs, too – in crisis quantities.
Illicit export into the United States is fuelling crisis levels of use of the drug fentanyl, in particular.
Small wonder border security, as a midterm election issue, is top of the list for many in Arizona.
Sheriff Mark Dannels
“We spend a lot of our time chasing the border challenges,” said Sheriff of Cochise County Mark Dannels.
“They’re running through people’s properties, breaking in, car pursuits at 100 miles an hour every day in this county.”
“In 2021, Arizona led the nation – over five million pills were seized here in southern Arizona.
“Our problem is our president, our leadership in Congress, has to change the message – has to get the politics out of it and has to have action behind it.
“We can’t get our president, or leadership of Congress, to even admit there’s an issue out here.
“It’s frustrating for me that the federal government says we don’t have a problem. It’s a huge challenge, and it’s insulting.”
The crowd chanted “four more years” during the recent rally held by former US President Donald Trump
Border security plays into the election priorities in Arizona.
It’s at the core of debate alongside the economy, abortion and crime – significant subject matter and yet, for many, sub-headings at these midterms.
In this voting process, the power of the vote itself is the issue threaded through the campaign.
The Democrats’ warning, from the president down, is of democracy under threat from election denial embedded in the electoral process.
Read more: Anger, betrayal and fear as America braces for the midterm elections
The Republican Party is fielding more than 300 candidates, for various positions of power, who believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Prominent among them is Kari Lake, who is standing for the post of governor in Arizona.
She has star quality, no doubt.
The Trump-loyalist is a polished former TV anchor who glides through the campaign trail on an “Ask Me Anything” tour.
Not that anyone asks about election fraud.
There’s a reason for that – no-one doubts it in the court of Kari, Trump loyalist.
Republican candidate for governor of Arizona Kari Lake embraces Mr Trump
We attended her event at the Fire House in Peoria, Arizona, squeezed in alongside TV crews from Japan and France, present to witness a growing phenomenon in US politics.
This poster girl of election denialism is touted as a potential running mate for Mr Trump, should he stand for the presidency in 2024.
I spoke to several members of the audience, and they were as polite as they were strident in volunteering that “the media” was to blame for an election fraud that cost Mr Trump the presidency.
In an awkward, yet somehow matey, interaction, the crowd was encouraged by Ms Lake to turn in their chairs and wave to the “fake news” filming from the back of the room.
For them, cheerful affirmation of election denialism is as routine as it is casual, in a Republican Party that feels Donald Trump’s gravitational pull.
Doubting the integrity of an electoral process has long since evolved from a fringe concept into a mainstream and widely-held conviction – never mind there’s no evidence to suggest election fraud of any material significance.
If Ms Lake becomes governor in Arizona, and polls indicate she has every chance, it will be her job to certify the state’s count at the 2024 presidential election.
This is a Trump-loyalist who claims he was robbed in 2020; she won’t fully endorse the integrity of the midterm election she’s standing in.
I asked her: “Is the only election you’ll endorse, one that you win?”
Her answer was: “I will absolutely accept the results of a fair, honest and transparent election.”
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How do midterm elections work?
It is a straight answer few would disagree with. It’s also one that leaves the door open to denying the integrity of the electoral process.
Who will be surprised if that doesn’t come to pass?
This is Arizona, which saw challenges, audits and lawsuits that led nowhere after the 2020 election.
It was pantomime protest that saw this state dubbed “ground zero” for election denial – that might just have been the curtain-raiser.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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Who is being targeted in Trump’s immigration raids?
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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President threatens to revoke US comedian’s citizenship
Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
Read more from Sky News:
Kate’s ’emotional’ words for tearful tennis star
Music festival cancelled as headliner pulls out
Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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