The Sheriff and Jones only had one topic they came to talk about: border security. In fact the town hall centered on a plan Jones has developed to secure the Arizona border. The plan involves three steps including troops, technology, finishing the fence, and sending the bill to Washington D.C.
“The single biggest issue that everybody in the state wants to talk about is immigration,” Jones said adding, “Nothing else even comes close and this has been true since day 1 of my campaign… Immigration has been the single biggest frustration for the people of Arizona.”
Sheriff Babeu, a big supporter of Jones said, “Christine doesn’t come from politics. She comes with a successful background in the private sector also an accountant, an attorney, and comes to this race because there are problems to be solved… We need people who are going to take action… We need a governor with a bold plan to deploy 1200 armed soldiers to this border.”
There have been questions regarding Jones’s sincerity about border security. At a debate sponsored by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Jones said illegal immigrants should come “out of the dark” and live in the “light.” Asked about what appeared to be mixed messages, Jones did not offer a concise explanation.
In the past, Jones has made complimentary statements about Hillary Clinton, but claims she “isn’t best friends with Hilary” and thinks she would be a horrible president.
Jones, an employee with GoDaddy for nearly a decade, claims when the NSA came asking for access to their servers she said no. About the NSA, Jones says, “If you look at any of the stories around that scandal you will see 9 major internet companies were called… All of them were in there except for one and that was GoDaddy. When they came to me and said hey it would be nice if we could get access to the one-third of the internet that you guys control… You know what I said to them? No.”
This message resonated deeply with the crowd at the town hall as they broke out in applause. The NSA message had a strong bipartisan appeal as even left leaning people looked at each other in disbelief.
Jone’s border security plan can be found here. She claims that illegal immigration costs Arizona $2.8 billion every year between overcrowded prisons, overburdened schools, and overwhelmed healthcare. She estimates securing the Arizona border would only cost roughly $270 million.
With a very bold and ambitious plan many in the crowd were skeptical, but Sheriff Babeu is all in.