John McCain: Arizona Wildfires Caused By Immigrants
John McCain says that the wildfires that have destroyed almost half a million acres of land in Arizona were caused by undocumented immigrants. Seriously.
I saw the fires, literally, as I flew over Arizona on my way back from the West coast last week. From 30 thousand or so feet in the air the massive columns of smoke looked enormous and stretched for many miles. The flames have caused evacuations and damages of more than $37 million. The initial reports that I had heard on the radio said that the fires were human-made, caused more than likely by campers; two persons had been detained for questioning.
Then, according to the Huffington Post, McCain, the Republican Senator from Arizona, made this statement at a weekend press conference:
There is substantial evidence that some of these fires are caused by people who have crossed our border illegally. They have set fires because they signal others, they have set fires to keep warm, and they have set fires in order to divert law enforcement agents and agencies from them. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border.
What’s next? Blame the undocumented for climate change?
The Huffington Post goes on to say that McCain didn’t provide evidence to support his claim. In fact, Salon.com took the Senator’s “substantial evidence” claim to task. They called McCains’s office and got this response:
…the senator “was given the information by a Forest Service official during his visit to the Wallow fire damaged area on Saturday.”
But a spokesman for the Forest Service told ABC that there is no evidence to support the claim that undocumented immigrants started the fires.
But to give the Senator a little bit of slack there is this: The Salon reports quotes a forest supervisor in Coronado, AZ, by the name of Jim Upchurch, who alluded to the undocumented fire source a couple of weeks ago at the end of a list of possible causes:
“the great majority, if not all the fires, on the Coronado National Forest (this year) have been human-caused. Causes of fires include ricocheting bullets, campfires, welding equipment and possibly ignition by smugglers or illegal immigrants.”
McCain didn’t mention the ricocheting bullets, campfires, or welding equipment. He chose to conveniently single-out the undocumented.
A few days after the Upchurch statement the Forest Service clarified that only the Coronado fire was under investigation and that border crossers were not specifically involved.
So if the Forest Service isn’t blaming the undocumented, where is McCain’s “substantial evidence?”
It’s somewhere in his thought process. Evidently.
But doesn’t this smack of the tired and usual blame tactics that paint the undocumented immigrant as unwanted, un-human, criminal, dangerous, burdensome, pariahs? This is more than scapegoating, it’s outright offensive. With no real evidence to back his claim, from his seat of high power, the Senator took a shot at defenseless immigrants.
Here’s a video of the statement, so you can see for yourself:
Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda
