July 21, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Illegal immigrants, drug dealers, and terrorists. Preventing those people from getting into the United States is the the focus of a new $50-million fund-raising campaign that Arizona started on Wednesday.
Contributions from individuals and corporations will pay for a new fence along more than 1,300 miles of Arizona’s border with Mexico.
The state’s “Build the Border Fence” campaign was started “because the federal government won’t [build the fence] and because the state doesn’t have the money to do it,” said Steve Smith, a Republican state senator, in an interview with the Associated Press. Mr. Smith sponsored a new law, enacted Wednesday, that authorizes the new fund-raising effort.
The law authorized a new Web site to accept donations and a committee to oversee the funds.
In a televised interview you can watch below, Mr. Smith said that support for the idea of raising private money for the new fence among businesses and individuals “has been unbelievable.”
While the approach to keeping immigrants and others out of the United States draws much opposition, Mr. Smith said he that he thought many Americans, even those outside Arizona, would be motivated to give because “Arizona is the big gateway, and the rest of the country is there for the taking. This is an American problem, not just an Arizona problem.”
Arizona residents can deduct donations to the new campaign from their state taxes, but state officials stopped short of telling donors that they can also take a charitable deduction on their federal income taxes.
“The state of Arizona provides no opinion as to whether donations … are deductible for federal income-tax purposes,” the campaign Web site says. To answer that question, it advises, “Consult a tax professional.”
Mr. Smith says he was inspired to sponsor the Arizona fence-building drive by another fund-raising campaign started a year ago to help the state defend its controversial immigration-enforcement law. That law require immigrants to carry legal documents at all times and allow police to detain anyone they think is in the United States illegally.
In the time since a federal court struck down parts of that law, a defense fund created by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has collected more than $3-million.
