PHOENIX, AZ — Governor Doug Ducey urged Arizona’s Congressional Delegation to oppose federal legislation that will jeopardize critical funding the state’s public charter schools receive and put thousands of students at risk.
“I am writing to bring your attention to a hugely problematic section of the Fiscal Year 2022 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Funding Bill. Section 314 of this legislation could have catastrophic effects on public charter schools in Arizona and throughout the nation,” Ducey wrote to Arizona’s two U.S. Senators and nine U.S. Representatives.
The legislation singles out public charter schools and threatens them with the potential loss of all of their federal funds if they contract with private companies for any services, with language stating: None of the funds made available by this Act or any other Act may be awarded to a charter school that contracts with a for-profit entity to operate, oversee or manage the activities of the school.
“This means that many of Arizona’s more than 230,000 public charter school students could be at risk of their school shutting down,” Governor Ducey states in the letter. “They educate over 21% of all public K-12 students in Arizona, the highest percentage in the country. It is unthinkable that support for public charter schools could be put at risk at all, much less as we are emerging from over a year’s worth of academic disruption brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Arizona Charter Schools Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and members of the Arizona State Legislature have also voiced concerns regarding Section 314 of the Fiscal Year 2022 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Funding Bill.
PHOENIX, AZ – The Arizona Attorney General Office is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to grant an emergency injunction pending appeal, requiring federal agencies to return to “normal removal operations” and follow existing federal immigration law and resume deportations.
Arizona and Montana are suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and federal officials over the February 18, 2021 Interim Guidance that halts nearly all deportations and ICE arrests. After the Interim Guidance was issued, deportations outside of the “priority categories” dropped by 98 percent in Arizona (only 7 out of 325 “other priority” cases were deported). Additionally, immigration-related arrests have dramatically decreased. ICE officers average just one interior arrest every 2.5 months.
The Arizona Attorney General Office claims that the Interim Guidance is in direct violation of federal law for removals of aliens with final orders of removal. 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(1)(A), requires that ICE “shall” remove an alien, who has received a final deportation order, from the United States within 90 days unless another exception in § 1231 applies. Late last month, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a separate case (Johnson v. Guzman Chavez) that “shall” means “must,” i.e. it is mandatory language.
Monday’s filing comes as June numbers show the border crisis is only getting worse. More than 188,000 individuals were encountered along the southwest border in June 2021. DHS has not publicly released removal numbers for several weeks.
Congressmen Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar introduced a bill last week, the Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act, which will amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the Optional Practice Training Program. The “OPT” Program, administered by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a guest worker program that was never authorized by Congress.
OPT was greatly expanded by the Obama Administration. It circumvents the H-1B cap by allowing over 100,000 aliens admitted as foreign students to work for up to three years in the United States after graduation, according to the congressmen.
The foreign workers are exempt from payroll taxes making them at least 10-15 percent cheaper than a comparable American worker.
“What country creates a program, but not a law, that rewards its businesses to fire citizen workers and replace them with foreign labor to pay the foreign labor less? The United States,” said Gosar in a press release. “The program is called OPT and it reflects a complete abandonment of our own workers.”
“At a time when American college graduates are struggling to find a job and many are saddled with student loans, our government should not be incentivizing foreign employees over Americans. This badly flawed government program should be eliminated,” said Gosar.
According to Rosemary Jenks, Director of Government Relations for NumbersUSA, the OPT Program “invented entirely through executive action, has become one of the largest guest worker programs in the United States. OPT openly undercuts American workers, particularly higher-skilled workers and recent college graduates, by giving employers an actual tax incentive to hire compliant, inexpensive foreign labor under the guise of “student training.”
“Landing that first job out of college will only become more difficult for young Americans as our universities formalize the role they play in crowding out opportunities once reserved for American graduates. For this reason, OPT must be eliminated. I praise the efforts of Congressman Paul Gosar in drafting the Fairness for High Skilled Americans Act and encourage his colleagues in both the House and Senate to join him in protecting opportunities for America’s STEM graduates,” stated Kevin Lynn, Founder of U.S. Techworkers.
Congressman Gosar first introduced the Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act in the 116th Congress and has twice signed amicus briefs in support of American workers in their lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to eliminate OPT.
PHOENIX — Governor Doug Ducey today selected Bob Herbold, whose foundation provides scholarships to higher education students, and Jessica Pacheco, an active member of the community with years of leadership experience, to fill recent vacancies on the Arizona Board of Regents.
“Bob and Jessica are both actively involved in communities throughout Arizona, and they have vast experience in public service and leadership roles,” said Governor Ducey. “I’m grateful for their commitment to serving Arizona’s students, universities and taxpayers. I know they will be excellent additions to the Board of Regents.”
The selection of Herbold and Pacheco will fill vacancies made by Kathryn Hackett King and Karrin Taylor Robson, who ended their terms early to pursue other opportunities.
Herbold is the President of The Herbold Foundation, which provides scholarships to master’s and PhD students in the areas of engineering and computer science at several universities. He is the Managing Director of The Herbold Group and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
In 1994, Herbold joined Microsoft as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, retiring in 2001. During his tenure in that position, he was responsible for finance, corporate marketing, market research, manufacturing and distribution, information systems, human resources, and public relations. From 2001 to 2003, Herbold worked half-time for Microsoft as Executive Vice President assisting in customer, industry, and government issues.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Herbold spent 26 years at The Procter & Gamble Company. In his last 5 years with P&G, he served as senior Vice President of Marketing and Information Services. In that role, he was responsible for the company’s worldwide marketing/brand management operations as well as all marketing related services such as media and retail promotion programs. He was also responsible for the worldwide information technology and market research organizations.
Herbold also has extensive experience as a corporate board member, having served on the boards of directors of Agilent Technologies, Neptune Orient Shipping Lines, Weyerhaeuser and many others over the past 20 years.
Herbold has a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati and both a master’s degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in computer science from Case Western Reserve University. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Case Western Reserve University, the University of Cincinnati and the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
“I’m honored to be selected to join the Board of Regents by Governor Ducey,” said Herbold. “Arizona’s universities do an excellent job in serving students, maintaining talented educators and engaging with their communities — and I look forward to helping the Board of Regents to build on this continued success.”
Pacheco, currently is a managing partner at Horizon Strategies where she leads local engagement and policy strategies. She has extensive private sector experience and for over 22 years held various executive positions in a Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, including Vice President of Corporate Development and External Communications, Vice President of External Communications, and Vice President of State and Local Affairs.
Pacheco’s primary responsibilities at Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, the parent company of Arizona Public Service Company, included state and local engagement strategies, policy strategy, reputation and brand management, external and customer communications, economic development within the utility service territory and developing and expanding business opportunities within the unregulated entities under the parent umbrella.
Pacheco serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Arizona-Mexico Commission and serves on the Executive Committee for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. She is active as a director with a number of other community and business organizations. Pacheco is a past chair of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce Foundation, past director for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Board and Maricopa Community College Foundation Board and is past chair of the Border Trade Alliance Board.
Pacheco earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. She has taught a seminar at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business on utility engagement in public policy and campaign management. She is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program and the Nuclear Reactor Technology Course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On Friday, Governor Doug Ducey called on Arizona’s congressional delegation to urge the Biden-Harris administration not to lift Title 42 border protections. In his letter to delegation members, the Governor expressed Arizona’s grave concern about reports the Biden administration plans to roll back Title 42 border protections imminently.
“I am writing to you today to share details of the impact this dangerous and misguided idea would have on Arizona and to request your assistance on behalf of the people of Arizona in urging the Biden administration to maintain these critical protections,” the Governor wrote to Arizona’s two U.S. Senators and nine U.S. Representatives.
The Governor’s letter to the delegation comes after he urged Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle P. Walensky on Tuesday not to lift Title 42.
“Lifting Title 42 now would prohibit the vast majority of those expulsions and result in hundreds of thousands of additional migrants entering the United States and being permitted to stay, without a plan to test or vaccinate those that may spread not just COVID-19 but also the numerous variants that are beginning to spread throughout the world and are deadlier than COVID-19 itself,” Governor Ducey states in the letter. “It is clear that the Biden administration does not have a plan, the resources, the facilities, or indeed the ability to deal with the unaccompanied minors and families currently being permitted to cross.”
Governor Ducey recently signed into law more than $55 million in funding for the Arizona National Guard border mission and assistance for local law enforcement with border security operations. Governor Ducey and Texas Governor Greg Abbott asked all U.S. governors to send available law enforcement resources to Arizona and Texas to assist with border security efforts. Governor Ducey and 19 fellow governors also wrote a letter calling on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to reverse their destructive policies that have created the crisis at the southern border.
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Dear Members of Arizona’s Congressional Delegation,
This week I sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky expressing Arizona’s grave concern about reports the Biden administration plans to roll back Title 42 border protections imminently. I am writing to you today to share details of the impact this dangerous and misguided idea would have on Arizona and to request your assistance on behalf of the people of Arizona in urging the Biden administration to maintain these critical protections.
Should the Biden administration choose to end these protections, they would be causing nothing short of a catastrophic surge of both illegal immigration and COVID-19 disease along our southern border. As Arizona continues to deal with the man-made crisis at our border, ending Title 42 will threaten the health and safety of not only Arizonans, but all Americans, and our already broken border will explode, overwhelming border patrol, law enforcement, non-profits and health care professionals. By lifting this policy, the Biden administration will be responsible for not only exacerbating our border crisis, but in effect, proactively and knowingly importing COVID-19 variants into the United States, starting in border states like Arizona.
Under Title 42, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may prohibit the entry of individuals into the country when “there is a serious danger of the introduction of a communicable disease into the United States.” Since the implementation of the Title 42 order, we have all seen that other countries — especially those south of the United States — have had difficulty in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to struggle with testing and vaccination of those in their countries.
Title 42 has ensured that the risk posed by migration to the United States of those to our southern border is mitigated to protect our citizens. In March, April, and May of this year alone, Title 42 has allowed Customs and Border Protection to swiftly expel over 329,000 individuals who had crossed into the United States without legal authorization to do so. Lifting Title 42 now would prohibit the vast majority of those expulsions and result in hundreds of thousands of additional migrants entering the United States and being permitted to stay, without a plan to test or vaccinate those that may spread not just COVID-19 but also the numerous variants that are beginning to spread throughout the world and are deadlier than COVID-19 itself.
It is clear that the Biden administration does not have a plan, the resources, the facilities, or indeed the ability to deal with the unaccompanied minors and families currently being permitted to cross. In fact, the administration has resorted to using hotels and motels with little monitoring to house these unaccompanied minors and families due to the lack of infrastructure available to support such an influx of migrants. Adding hundreds of thousands of single adults will only exacerbate the problem.
The Biden administration has stated that “now is not the time for migrants to come to the US Border,” but revoking Title 42 is tantamount to issuing a cordial invitation and will certainly be used as such in communications by the cartels and human smugglers that entice people in Central America to make the dangerous journey north in order to turn a profit. These organizations have very little concern for the well-being of those being trafficked let alone those in the United States.
An open-borders strategy is never wise, but it is an even worse idea right now, as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb in many countries south of our border. Title 42 is one of the only measures remaining in place which allows not only the federal authorities but also state and local public health professionals to maintain public health that they have worked so hard for over the past 17 months of this pandemic. To continue to ensure the safety and security that we have achieved in this country following the COVID-19 outbreak, our borders cannot withstand a surge in migration that the lifting of Title 42 will cause.
With legal travel still limited between the United States, Mexico and Canada due to the pandemic, and the administration continuing to advocate for federal, state and local restrictions on schools and private businesses, lifting Title 42 would be nothing short of outrageous and an insult to all Americans who have been forced to deal with these restrictions.
I am strongly urging the Biden administration to keep the Title 42 order in place until all other COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted and the United States has some assurances that those countries to our south have implemented strategies to protect against its spread.
I respectfully request your assistance and advocacy on this critical matter. Thank you for your consideration of these issues and please let our office know if there is anything we can do to assist as you are representing our state in Washington D.C.
Sincerely,
Douglas A. Ducey
Governor
State of Arizona
