Controversies
Brewer's signing of Arizona SB 1070 and her position of Governor made her the recipient of much of the bill's criticism. In response to the various personal attacks launched against her, many of which called her a Nazi, she responded: "Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that... and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced." However Brewer's father died in 1955 (ten years after World War II ended) from lung cancer, believed to be caused from constant exposure to chemicals while working as a civilian supervisor at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada.
After Brewer's statement that "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded," a Fox News team investigated the claim. They concluded that in the last two years only one human skull had been found, and that had been the result of animals. Six medical examiners in Arizona from Yuma, Pima, Santa Cruz, Cochise, Pinal and Maricopa confirmed that they had no records of decapitated bodies. Brewer later retracted her previous statement, saying, "That was an error, if I said that. I misspoke, but you know, let me be clear, I am concerned about the border region because it continues to be reported in Mexico that there's a lot of violence going on and we don't want that going into Arizona".
The Brewer administration has also been targeted by KPHO for hiring Chuck Coughlin and Paul Senseman, both lobbyists for Corrections Corporation of America, as a policy advisor to her campaign and communications director in her administration. Both Coughlin and Senseman no longer work for CCA. CCA operates six private, for-profit prisons in Arizona. After KPHO published its investigative report, Brewer's re-election campaign retaliated by pulling all campaign ads from KPHO.
On August 15, 2012, the same day that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications under the Obama administration’s new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Governor Brewer issued an executive order preventing the state of Arizona from issuing driver’s licenses and public benefits to young undocumented immigrants who receive deferred status and work authorization under the new program. In addition to driving privileges, Governor Brewer’s order bars undocumented immigrants who qualify for deferred action from receiving state-subsidized child care, health insurance, unemployment benefits, business and professional licenses, and government contracts. Thousands of individuals submitted applications for the new program.
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