Gov. Brewer to Obama: Stop the Jokes, Secure the Border

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer speaks April 19 at the Governor's Volunteer Awards luncheon in Phoenix. (AP2011)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wasn't laughing when President Obama stood at the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday and joked that Republican lawmakers who won't support a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system until the border is secured won't be happy until they get a moat with alligators along the border.

"I think he should get back to business being the president of the United States," Brewer told Fox News on Saturday.

"I don't think his comic attitude and laughing at a serious issue is being very well received, certainly not here in Arizona, I would imagine not across America," she said. "This is a serious situation. And for him to go to a pep rally and make light of the situation is unbelievable."

In a new video created by the Arizona Republican Party and posted to YouTube, Brewer tells Obama to stop the jokes, do his job and secure the border.

The video notes that Brewer invited Obama to visit the Arizona border nearly a year ago, but he declined.

In his speech on Tuesday, Obama boasted of increasing border patrol agents, nearing completion of a border fence, and screening more cargo.

But the video says the U.S. Border Patrol controls only 44 percent of the border with Mexico – only 15 percent of that right on the border, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The video also notes that Mexican drug cartels are operating in more than 230 U.S. cities, according to the State Department, and points out that Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in December by an armed group of illegal immigrants.

The video also compares the speech the president made in Tucson, Arizona in January after the mass shooting that left six dead and 13 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to the one he made in El Paso.

"As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility rather that pointing fingers or assigning blame," Obama said in January."Let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully."

Four months later, in El Paso, he mocked Republicans for their opposition to immigration reform on border security alone.

"Mr. President, what happened to the man who spoke in Tucson?" the ad asks.

Andrei Cherny, chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, said the president's comment has been taken out of context.

"An off-hand comment in the middle of a 45-minute long substantive address doesn't mean that it deserves an attack ad response," he told MyFoxPhoenix.com.

But Thomas Morissey, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, said he was offended by the president's comment.

"He's talking to a group of people, cracking jokes and they're laughing and they're applauding and all that -- what part of this don't they understand?" he said.

Cherny also questioned the video being posted the day two border agents were killed in a train collision.

"The timing of this video really was disturbing given the news that had just come out about these two border patrol agents who had lost their lives in the line of duty," he said

But Morissey stood by the ad, saying the president should be held accountable.

"If you wanna dismiss that, or you wanna dismiss the concern of the people of Arizona with glib remarks and jokes and stuff, it doesn't solve anything," Morissey said.