Time & Perspective Quote by Jan Brewer

Brewer’s line is less a legal strategy than a piece of political theater built for a moment when “the feds” had become a reliable antagonist. The verbal tics - “you know,” the stumbles, the restart mid-sentence - read like spontaneity, but they also function as authenticity cues: this isn’t a polished briefing, it’s a governor “telling it straight,” speaking in the vernacular of frustration rather than the language of federalism.

The intent is combative and corrective. “Make them do their job” frames Washington as negligent, not merely ideological. That’s a crucial move: it recasts a partisan dispute over immigration enforcement as a matter of basic competence and duty. The line “they sued Arizona... we can sue them back” flips victimhood into retaliation, turning litigation into a proxy for sovereignty. It’s not just Arizona defending a law; it’s Arizona demanding recognition, insisting the state has standing to call the nation’s bluff.

Subtext: Brewer is performing alignment with a base that felt abandoned by federal immigration policy in the late 2000s and early 2010s, especially amid the fallout from Arizona’s SB 1070 and the Obama administration’s challenge to it. The repeated “they’re not enforcing the laws” is the moral keystone - it implies a broken contract where citizens comply, states strain, and the federal government refuses to uphold its end. Whatever the legal merits, the rhetoric’s power comes from its simplicity: identify a dereliction, name an adversary, promise a counterpunch.