Border plan has radar, Guard funds

But provisions include some vetoed earlier
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

PHOENIX — Legislative Republicans offered a plan Thursday to spend $160 million on a border security plan — a plan that includes a provision that could subject the whole package to a veto.

The proposal includes new penalties against companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers.

It also provides $50 million over two years to buy or lease ground radar units to spot people coming across the border illegally. And it has $10 million to station additional National Guard troops along the state's southern border, though it does not spell out whether they will be actually looking for illegal crossers.

But the plan, to be presented to Gov. Janet Napolitano as a single package, still includes language to make it a state crime for people to be in this country illegally.

That is very similar to a measure the governor vetoed earlier this year, at least in part because many law enforcement agencies and prosecutors were opposed.